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THE WORK OF 
OUR HANDS 


BY 


H. A. MITCHELL KEAYS 

11 

AUTHOR OF 

HE THAT EATETH BREAD WITH ME 



THE WORK OF OUR HANDS ESTABLISH THOU IT. 

Psalm XC- 17 . 

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NEW YORK 

McClure, Phillips & co, 

MCMV 

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► Two vOD<es «ac«ivrfc’' ' 

^ OCT. 6 i9P5 

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McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO. 
Published September, IQOS 







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CHAPTER ONE 


H eard the news, Hanscombe 
“What news ?” 

“Ah, then you haven’t/’ 

The two men walked in silence to the corner. 
“After all, you might as well tell me,” remarked 
Hanscombe genially. “I’d hate to hear it from any 
one else.” 

Inderrieden laughed, “I just met Bronsart. He 
asked me to congratulate him. His son is engaged to 
Forsythe’s daughter. What do you think of that for 
the turn of the wheel ^ ” 


The busy commercial day hurried to its close; in 
the offices of Christian Bronsart & Co. the click of 
the type-writers lagged; here and there a clerk glanced 
furtively at the hour. 

But in his private room Christie Bronsart still sat 
at his desk, his eye as bright, his energy as keen of 
edge as when he first set step across the threshold that 
morning. 

An immense pile of logs smouldered frostily red 
upon a massive hearth; around it, half-a-dozen chairs 
remained in the confused grouping in which their late 
3 


4 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

occupants had left them. Bronsart glanced at the 
empty seats and smiled. He saw still in each the 
man who had just quitted it. 

He looked down at his hands — delicate, feminine 
hands with slender fingers, but powerful thumbs. 
They trembled slightly. He smiled again. This un¬ 
wonted evidence of weakness amused him — in a 
way, touched him. 

“Ah, but that was a trick worth taking, my boy! 
You’ve got those cock-sure fellows by the throat, and 
they don’t even suspect it yet.” 

On the desk stood a Canton bowl of red-blooded 
roses. They were always there — fresh every morn¬ 
ing from his conservatory. Nature by the river’s brim 
had no charm for Bronsart — he liked it glass- 
housed, exotic, moist with cultivated dew. 

He drew the bowl towards him, and rearranged 
the brilliant mass of bloom with those deft, artistic, 
woman’s fingers. Every perception was awake, every 
faculty strained to supremest tension; the moment’s 
caressing of his long-stemmed favourites soothed him. 

He looked critically about the room — at the heavy 
Oriental rug as baffling and elusive in pattern and 
colouring as the philosophy of the race to which its 
weavers belonged — at the long row of windows 
which gave such broad expansive effect of light — 
and last, at the fire, around which those human pieces 
on his individual chess-board had lounged at ease, 
and smoked his choice cigars. 

It was all such a scientifically wrought-out setting 
— so subtly calculated as to psychologic effect — for 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 5 

those plays in which he acted so dramatic and strate¬ 
gic a part. 

“A blazing fire and a good cigar/’ he murmured. 
“The directors of the Clifton Cement Company will 
always remember this interview as a pleasant one.” 

The great affair with John Forsythe had taught 
him much — it had taught him to move heaven and 
earth when possible, to avoid making a personal 
enemy. 

“Ah, if I had that to do now, how differently I’d 
handle it,” he mused. “ But I was new to it then, and 
I had to make my footing on this earth sure some¬ 
how.” 

He looked back at his roses — they rested him. But 
presently, his thin, sensitive lip quivered curiously; 
through a narrow plate-glass square he had caught a 
passing glimpse of his son. “Ah, the boy! Freeze my 
soul! I haven’t forgotten what it feels like. It’s a dis¬ 
ease that marks a man worse than smallpox, but if 
you only get it bad enough, I guess it’s worth the 
catching.” 

He pulled a rose from the bowl, and plucked it, un¬ 
thinking, apart — petal by petal. “Lord! That Sun¬ 
day night — why, it’s getting on for thirty years ago. 
That little pink gown — it had a kind of a sprig on it 
— I don’t suppose — ” 

He got up suddenly, and moved restlessly about the 
room, drawing the chairs back into their appointed 
places. Another interview was before him; he must 
have an altered atmosphere. His thin line of jaw 
hardened. 


6 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


“By the Great Molly!’’ he muttered, “but it’s up 
to me now. This comes of the folly of being a parent.” 

Fifteen minutes later he met John Forsythe at the 
door. 

“Ah, Forsythe, how are you — how are you? 
Come in.” 

“I was just coming, Mr. Bronsart,” said Forsythe 
slowly. He accepted the hand it was impossible to 
ignore. 

“Sit down — sit down,” said Bronsart genially. 

“Thank you, Mr. Bronsart — no.” And for a 
swift moment Forsythe looked straight at the flexible, 
debonair little man beside him — and what pride 
and passion of unconscious hatred there was in the 
glance! He seemed, in the instant, the figure of aTitan 
cast in bronze, towering down contemptuous, upon 
brief, human dust. His clothes hung carelessly upon 
his fine, bent figure, aged years beyond that of the 
other, who was yet his senior — his magnificent, leo¬ 
nine head, with its whitened hair, and the rugged face 
so deeply furrowed, betrayed the tragic temperament 
fated to lift life’s happenings to a lofty plane of joy 
and sorrow. 

The man beside him, master of the little world in 
which he felt himself well placed, was however, at this 
moment, conscious of some discomfort — of a desire, 
indeed, to resort to expletive forbidden in this pres¬ 
ence. Yet he would have liked to tell Forsythe how 
much he sympathized with him — he had always 
wanted to do that, and he had hoped that this might 
prove the effective moment for graceful confession. As 


tHE WORK OF OUR HANDS 7 

that seemed doubtful, however, he merely remarked 
somewhat abruptly, but with admirable earnestness 
of demeanour: ‘‘Forsythe, your daughter is a pearl 
of great price. I appreciate that fact to the full, and 
greatly regret that my wife and daughter are abroad 
as usual and unable to extend the courtesies to her 
that the situation certainly demands. Pm sure I hope 
she is going to be able to make something out of the 
boy — he’s a pretty big untilled field, you know. But 
then, most men are until some woman takes them in 
hand. And Aylmer — ” 

Within him the soul of John Forsythe flinched. 
“Aylmer!” The familiarity of it upon those lips! Yet 
henceforth, she, his child, was to belong to this people 
— she was to become bone of their bone, flesh of their 
flesh. She was to bear their name — that hated 
name! — to learn their ways, to live their life. 

But he caught back the groan on his lips — 
straightened his bent figure — not before this man 
would he reveal himself broken. 

Bronsart sank into his chair with a sigh of relief. 
“ But he’s a fine old fellow,” he reflected. “ If he only 
had a sense of humour! ‘ Brought up in the fear of the 
Lord’—you bet that poor girl has been! Bless my 
soul! Forsythe doesn’t belong in this age. He’s got his 
Presbyterian Deity in every nook and corner of his 
life. Still, I don’t know but it’s been a good thing for 
him — and for me!” The sharp grey eyes twinkled. 
“For it was a pretty staggering trick I played on him, 
yet what did he do about it ? Just interpreted it as the 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


8 

highest expression of the Divine Will for him/^ Bron- 
sart whistled softly. Great idea that! But he got his 
Presbyterian God and me awfully mixed all the same. 
Poor Forsythe! Fellows like that have got reserved 
seats in Heaven sure, but there’s no show for them to 
do up-to-date business down here.” 

The Forsythe house stood deep among trees, closed 
to the street by a high brick wall which was a source 
of irritation to the neighbourhood. Through the iron 
gate the passers-by in summer-time caught glimpses 
of a charming old-fashioned garden, and in the winter 
the house itself was disclosed — a solid stone struc¬ 
ture, of simple unencumbered line — a powerful pro¬ 
test against the hysterical erections huddled together 
as upon a public exhibition ground, outside the of¬ 
fending wall. It had been built by an Englishman, the 
superfluous son of a great family, who, thirty odd 
years before, had emigrated, and acquired a large 
tract of land, merely owing to the desire inborn in his 
race, of property ownership. But in time he discov¬ 
ered that his holding was heavily timbered, and 
as by magic a village sprang to birth in his forest 
upon the edge of the little lake. The boom of com¬ 
merce displaced the song of the birds; the maddening 
monody of mighty saws smothered the song of Nature 
alone with her secrets in the solemn beauty of the 
great woods. Further and further back from the 
sound of the lapping waves the dark line retreated, 
and that heaven which the slender tree-tops brought 
so near, went with it. Human greed entered paradise. 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 9 

and made merchandise of its beauty; with it came 
crime, the brutality of man to man, the anguished 
sobs of women in the darkness. 

When summer came the sun beat pitiless upon 
stark hills of sawdust, glaring, yellow as brass in the 
hot light — over their hideousness no tender green 
wove shroud. Men sweat, and cursed the sun which 
burnt their burdened backs; they had no time or wish 
to seek the dewy depths of shade they had been born 
but to destroy. 

When winter came in all its majesty of northern 
storm, the icy blast wreaked its utmost fury against 
the hovels pitched like tents upon the unsheltered 
shore. The wind sought wailing the trees in whose 
tops it had once made moan — it throttled instead 
the black breath struggling skyward from the hideous 
throats of iron chimneys. 

Snow fell, and the far away forests were clothed 
with a mystery of beauty, austere, entrancing in its 
delicacy — veiled in a silence vast, primeval, un¬ 
stirred by human sigh. 

Snow fell, too, on the sawdust hills, on the hovels, 
on the dirty decks of the lumber boats. But here, its 
beauty vanished as it fell — it but added to the mis¬ 
ery, the squalor of the human herd. 

“Forty-eight cents!’’ exclaimed a trembling, cold- 
benumbed man to the young clerk at the Company’s 
Store. “ Damn you! You dare to tell me that’s all that’s 
coming to me for a whole month’s work.? You devil! 
Do you know what you’re doing.? You’re drinking 
my blood. You devil! Come out here and I’ll shoot 


10 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

you like a dog. Til shoot you till you're dead — dead 
— dead. By God, I will." 

The clerk was a beardless boy, clean-eyed, his con¬ 
science new to business like this. He burnt with 
shame. 

The man staggered out. His soul was a hell. “The 
boss is worth a million," he muttered. “And me! — 
Well, ain't I worth forty-eight cents?" He laughed 
fearfully. 

By and by he passed the saloon, belching its light, 
warmth, welcome, to the wayfaring man, if a fool. He 
passed, hesitated, turned back, and went in. And 
there drank deep of the devil's brew — sold, too, by 
the Company. 

The next morning he lay at rest — a sodden car¬ 
cass on the snow. But he had been a man, made in 
the image of God — had loved, aspired, and laboured. 
Then died — worth ? — not even forty-eight cents. 

The boy behind the counter gave up his job. He 
was young, obstinate, extreme. He confused death 
with murder. 

For three years the sawmill ran its swift course. 
Then one day stopped. “No more work — boss's land 
cleaned out," the men said. Each day the boat bore 
some of them away, to seek the bread of life else¬ 
where. They had hardly a backward glance for the 
deserted shore. They but wanted to forget it — they 
had lived there the sodden life of serfs. They had had 
food and shelter, but so in the north woods had the 
wild things, and freedom and beauty besides. 

By and by the last load of lumber left the little dock 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS II 

— the machinery from the dismantled mill followed 
it — the big store closed — the overseer’s house was 
empty — his bed left just as he had turned out of it 
for the last time — the unlocked door swung sullen 
upon grating hinge. 

Warmth, light, the human cheer of even the mean¬ 
est hovel was gone. The appalling stillness of deser¬ 
tion settled like a pall upon the grim collection of 
blackened huts — the dock slipped rotting into the 
silent lake. 

The Englishman pocketed his easy million and 
went “home.” He had paid his manager generously, 
and knew little of the precise methods by which his 
fortune had been acquired. The store ? — By George! 
that was a shady institution, but as long as the hoary- 
handed sons of toil stood it, what business was it of 
his ? 

The house he had built and occupied while his for¬ 
tune was in the making away to the north, stood ten¬ 
antless for a dozen years. Then John Forsythe, well 
known as a rapidly rising young business man, bought 
it for a song. 

And there seemed poetic justice in the fact that the 
boy who had thrown up his chance with the Eagle 
Lumber Company because of a question of con¬ 
science, should enter thus easily into the home of his 
former employer. 

Later, as the disasters of his life thickened upon 
him, he held doggedly to this possession. Property 
had gone up — Christie Bronsart himself had cast 
envious glances towards that house. Ah! but it was 


12 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


the frame which enshrined for John Forsythe his most 
precious memories of the little wife no longer by his 
side. 

It remained his home. 

The high iron gate clanged heavily behind For¬ 
sythe, as he turned in upon the gravelled walk. Some 
one must have been awaiting the sound, for before he 
reached the door, it was thrown open, and a broad 
beam of light flashed down the path as in welcome. 
His step quickened. It was late November — the lin¬ 
gering leaves hung listless upon drear branches — 
even the ivy, splendid splash of scarlet against the 
cold grey stone, witnessed but of decay, death. 

But in the glow of the open doorway a girl stood 
— a girl radiant in the innocence, the joy, the inalien¬ 
able anticipation of youth. 


CHAPTER TWO 


A REN’T they lovely, dad?” said Aylmer. 
“They come every day,” she added shyly. 
“Ah!” remarked Forsythe absently. He 
was not thinking of the flowers in the epergne. He 
was thinking of his child — of the mystery which had 
invaded her being. Every allurement of youth — 
colour, curve, gesture even, had acquired accent, 
meaning. A half-score of yesterdays ago he had said 
good-bye to his little daughter with her naive obedi¬ 
ence, her touching dependence upon him, little dream¬ 
ing that it was for the last time. 

And now, across the dinner-table, he watched her 
furtively, his heart tense with pain. A woman! — 
Yes, his little girl had become that, and how pitifully 
eager she was to dig the grave of her childhood! Love ? 
— The boy and girl called it that. 

Ah! how he longed to take her in his strong arms, 
and carry her away — away from this experience that 
encroached, that claimed dominion. Love! — it was 
a sly, witching synonym. 

The passionate protest of the father, of the man 
who gauges the meaning of another man’s love, 
surged high in his heart. 


14 the work of our hands 

Love ? — to the child, the perfume of flowers, the 
adoration of her Beloved, the mystery of touch — his 
shy lip upon hers — a bridal veil, a dim church, his 
ring upon her finger, and then ? — Ah, she little knew. 

Then, Life — hard, cold, unperfumed — the sharp 
edge of reality, the step down from the throne, the 
hand of the husband, lover still, mayhap, but — 

‘‘ Dad, dear,” broke in Aylmer’s voice, sweet upon 
his bitterness, “Dad, when you married mother — ” 

“Ah, your mother,” he murmured. 

What children they had been, he and she! How had 
they dared risk marriage, with his future all unmade 
before them ? 

But those early days — her sweet face at the win¬ 
dow, watching for him in the dusk — her last kiss in 
the morning, which sent him forth fortified to meet 
the day — always, always, in his heart, the deep un¬ 
derlying thought of her, which sweetened struggle, 
glorified endeavour, rewarded achievement. 

Her light step busy about the house — he could hear 
it still; her soft voice, tender in snatches of song, of 
lullaby to the children, who came and went, leaving 
them bereaved, with hearts that ached, but loved only 
the deeper. 

And then at last, Aylmer — Aylmer, child of 
prayer, of pledge, of dedication. He could feel again 
the slow drag of those ponderous, midnight hours, 
massive with misery for him, and then — then — the 
child’s sharp cry. 

His wife’s white face upon the pillow — the acid of 
time had but cut it ever deeper into his memory — he 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS I5 

had crept to her side, his strong imperious manhood 
melted into tenderness, spiritualized by her agony. 
She lay there — still, white, ethereal — eternal type 
of the Madonna mystically adored, but to him, in that 
high moment, a greater than sinless Virgin, enthroned 
above the passion and the pain through which alone 
Love becomes Life. 

Ah more! — beneath the mystery, the miracle of 
Motherhood, he claimed the wife, the sweetheart, the 
one-with-him, sharer supreme of deepest, subtlest of 
his soul’s secrets. The babe upon her breast was his, 
but far more, was its mother of him. 

It grew late; the housekeeper. Sincerity Dawson, 
came in, and took a seat in silence, as she had done 
every night for nearly twenty years when her master 
was at home. 

“Aylmer, you will read the 27th Psalm,” said For¬ 
sythe. 

The girl seated herself at the little table, upon 
which the great Bible rested. The light fell clear upon 
her young face. 

*The Lord is my light and my salvation 
Whom shall I fear 

The sweet voice quivered. It was her mother’s 
psalm, read in the house only upon high, commemo¬ 
rative occasion. 


'Wait on the Lord; 

Be strong, and let thine heart take courage. 


l6 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

Aylmer shut the book. And a moment later, her 
father’s voice became part with the silence, low, in¬ 
tense, passionately calm. Uncomprehending, yet she 
was thrilled by the noble simplicity of his prayer, by 
its sublimity of phrase, and splendour of high poetic 
fancy, all unconscious of its lofty form. 

It was the product of a childlikeness of faith, which 
questioned naught where it adored — before whose 
enraptured gaze the pearly gates of Paradise stood 
wide upon an eternity of material bliss — of golden 
streets, crowns, precious stones, of four-and-twenty 
thrones, of lamps of flame amid which moved a 
mighty pageant of all nations of the earth, while the 
superb ritual of a service of the saints voiced unwear¬ 
ied adoration of the One who sat within a rainbow 
brilliance arching Eternal Majesty. 

“O Lord, give unto us the morning star. Let our names be con¬ 
fessed before Thee in Heaven. 

Reveal Thyself unto us as Thou dost not unto the world. 

Come near, abide with us. The day is spent. 

Grant us the gift of silence, that we may hear Thee in the tumult 
of life — that we may set wide the door, that Thou mayst 
enter in and break with us the bread of salvation. 

Lord, there is the time when the dew of youth is fresh upon the 
brow, when the sky of life is fair with promise, when to the 
tender feet there are but blossoms in the way — ** 

The strong voice wavered — was silent. 

“What a comfortable thing it must be to believe 
what you believe the way you do. Sincerity,” mused 
Aylmer. “You see. Pm always turning things over 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 1 7 

and wondering. And I get such curious, oh, such curi¬ 
ous answers to the questions Fm always asking 
myself.” 

Sincerity bent forward, her eyes sharp with per¬ 
plexity, fixed upon the young, eager face. 

‘‘Now father and mother — why, they believed, I 
suppose, that marriage was a high affair of the soul. 
It isn’t in the least. Sin. The question of souls doesn’t 
enter into it at all. All that I really know at this mo¬ 
ment of the man I’m going to marry is, that he’s six 
feet tall, that he’s handsome, that he’s fair, that his 
eyes — Oh, well! never mind his eyes. Sin — ” she 
picked up the photo of her lover from the dressing- 
table— looked a long moment at it; then turned it 
face downward, resolute, though her fingers lingered 
upon it — “ but you see, don’t you I that I don’t 
know anything whatever about his soul. I know 
that he is probably a gentleman, because he has been 
most expensively trained to be one, and education 
happened to him just as his looks did, and his clothes 
— not because of any merit in him, but merely be¬ 
cause they happened to be provided for him. And yet 
it’s just his six feet, and his eyes, and his manner, and 
the cut of his clothes that I — that I — love. Just as 
he loves my pretty hair. Sin dear, and doesn’t give a 
hang — yes, I will say it — doesn’t give a hang 
whether I’ve got a soul inside my shell or not.” 

“Child”—the old woman spoke slowly — “you 
may talk as you like, but you won’t be able to escape 
your inheritance.” 

“ My inheritance ” 


i8 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


“Ay, child. The greatest a woman can have — the 
power to love as your mother loved.’’ 

“ But I don’t want to — I don’t want to. That kind 
of loving makes very good poetry, but very bad living. 
Look at dad — no one could call him happy.” 

“Happy!” echoed Sincerity scornfully. “Perhaps 
some day you’ll think him happy enough. It’s a great 
thing to have the ache of a sorrow like his in your 
heart.” 

There was silence, each thinking her own thoughts, 
until a moment of great emotion overwhelmed Sin¬ 
cerity. 

“My lamb,” she cried, “don’t let them hurry you. 
Think about it, long, long. Marriage is not for to-day 
or to-morrow — it will be for your life. And this is all 
wrong. I know it. And your mother would know. 
There’s too much injustice and bitterness behind.” 

“Injustice — bitterness ?” The young eyes opened 
wide. 

“Ah, my child, I could tell you. But I won’t — I 
won’t. You shall judge this thing fair.” Yet for a mo¬ 
ment Sincerity wrestled hard with temptation. “ But 
you say, child, yourself, that you don’t love him — as 
— as — ” 

“Not love my ChristianThe sweet young voice 
rang high. “Not love him .? Oh, Sin dear, listen, listen. 
Love him ? — why, I love him so that it’s sweet — 
it’s madness of joy — just to try to see if I can only 
pretend to myself for one moment that — I don’t. 
For then, I know — I know.” 

There was silence a moment. Then in smothered 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


19 

tone, Aylmer added: “Oh, Sin, run away, run away, 
dear. You mustn’t see — you mustn’t know — how 
much I love him.” 

The girl pushed open the door, and stepped with 
such faint footfall within the long, old-fashioned 
drawing-room, that her lover, dreaming dreams of 
her, did not hear. 

She stood there, far from him, and in that moment 
of waiting, there befell to her strange consciousness of 
the remoteness of herself, in her untouched maiden¬ 
hood, from him; of her high estate, her royal value; of 
the meaning to herself of the priceless gift she was 
bestowing unpriced upon her lover. And fear besieged 
her — fear of herself, of him, of all that lay before 
them to be lived — of the fierce noonday, of the long 
twilight weaving even now, mayhap, the shroud of 
Love’s young dawn. 

“Christian,” she cried afraid, “Christian!” 

The young man turned sharply, then paused. “Oh, 
Aylmer, don’t stir. Don’t! Dearest, I want never to 
forget you, there as you are now, in all your whiteness 
in the dim light, and with just that word upon your 
lips.” 

But she was beside him — she was in his arms; his 
lips breathing upon hers what had become the very 
breath of life to them. 

“Think of it,” he whispered, “I’ve been gone from 
you only four days, and it has seemed like eternity. 
Aylmer, what have you done to me My heart was a 
wilderness full of voices crying: ‘Aylmer, Aylmer!’ ” 


20 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

He held a small white velvet case towards her. But 
she drew back. 

‘'Oh, Christian, must you give me something 
more 

"Why not.?’’ he asked. 

"Dear, you won’t be angry .? — but can’t you see .? 

— Oh, how I wish you were a poor man — how I 
wish you had nothing to give me, that I might give 
you all that is, that must be, worth so little to you 
now. I wish life with you was going to be hard for me 

— how can love ever be all that it might if there is 
nothing to sacrifice ?” 

The young man laughed. "Bless my soul! What a 
delicious bit of righteousness it is. But don’t get anx¬ 
ious, dear. It’s just possible that a little agony may 
come our way sometime or other, merely to remind us 
that we’re human, but I’m hardly in the mood to an¬ 
ticipate that now. Dear, can’t you look at them?” 
His blue eyes were wistful — he held the case again 
towards her. "They’re beautiful,” he added apologet¬ 
ically. 

" Beautiful! Why, Christian, I have never seen any¬ 
thing so lovely.” 

Delicately, she lifted the slender platinum chain, 
set with the flame of opals and the flash of diamonds. 

“ The opals — they’re your stone, and they’re just 
like you. They’re never the same. Sometimes they’re 
all fire, and again they’re so cold.” 

"Why, Christian, I’m not like that,” protested 
Aylmer. 

"Not like that?” he laughed softly. "Dear, you’re 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 21 

just like that. The man who loves you a month knows 
more of joy and pain than most men do in a lifetime. 
You’ve had a hundred moods while I’ve sat here to¬ 
night. And, dear, I’ve had but one.” His voice sank 
low. “ I love you. It’s the only mood I know.” 

A few months later, when the blossoms lay all white 
upon the mists of green, they were married. 

“Dad, dad,” whispered Alymer brokenly, as her 
husband waited to take her away, “I can’t leave you 
— I can’t.” 

Forsythe kissed her quietly. “But you’re coming 
back again.” 

But never to him. He knew it, as she could not, and 
his strong heart fainted within him. 

Later, in the dim spring twilight of that long, long 
day, he went out to the quiet spot in God’s Acre 
where the child’s mother lay, and there, upon the si¬ 
lent sod, he found Aylmer’s bridal flowers. 

Ah, she was not forgotten then! In the moment of 
the greatest experience life had yet brought to her, the 
child’s soul had made cry to her dead, unknown 
mother. 

He turned homeward, comforted. 

A few streets away, alone too, in his big house, sat 
Christie Bronsart. “I wonder, I wonder,” he mused, 
“how it’s going to work out. My son, and Forsythe’s 
daughter!” 

A confused medley of thoughts blurred through his 
mind; one at last,«stood out, insistent. “Unto him that 


22 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


hath shall be given. Unto him that hath not, shall be 
taken even that which he hath.’’ 

“Well, that strikes me as pretty good gospel. I took 
from Forsythe just about all that he had, and what I 
didn’t take, my son has been given.” 

But another thought came and disturbed the mo¬ 
ment’s smile. 

“I wonder — I wonder.” He sighed, reflective. 


CHAPTER THREE 

I T was June and the early dew lay light upon the 
roses when Christian and his bride reached their 
journey’s end. They had driven for miles along 
the smooth roads in the tender sunshine of a perfect 
summer day; as they drew near the little village above 
which the chateau frowned imperious, they grew si¬ 
lent; the spell of experience, of place, was upon them. 
To the girl came questionings, fast, insistent. A long 
line of brides had driven up this poplar-shaded road 
— beside them, their lords, serenely fixed in the faith 
that they owned the very air their vassals breathed. 
The bells had rung merrily from the little church 
tower; the straggling street had made brave show of 
arch and banner in honour of count and countess. 

But what had been the thoughts of this proud wo¬ 
man and that, as each in turn had made entrance 
upon this lonely, mount-imprisoned stage, where she 
was to play her high part until life’s brief day for her 
was done Had she loved her lord, or had she already, 
in swift fear, discovered herself more surely slave than 
the peasant who, in the dust, curtsied deep as she 
passed in pageant array ? 

Aylmer sighed. 


23 


24 the work of our hands 

‘‘Dearest — why?’’ asked Christian, bending to¬ 
wards her. 

“ I was thinking of all the women who have driven 
to their home along this road — but was it home, or 
was it already to their imaginings a prison ?” 

“Oh, it was prison enough for some of them. You’ll 
have the rarest times getting at their histories from 
Mariette, the old caretaker. She’s a mine of informa¬ 
tion and superstition. One of the counts about a cen¬ 
tury ago married a peasant girl, and there were fear¬ 
ful ructions. She was never recognized by the old 
count and countess, but when they died, it was her 
turn, and she ruled like no woman had ever ruled be¬ 
fore her. She had a business head, and she enriched the 
estate by every conceivable means. But when it came 
her son’s turn to marry, it took a princess to satisfy 
her, and that was her mistake, for it brought into the 
blood a stream of degeneracy and profligacy that has 
about washed out any virtue it ever possessed. But she 
was dead and dust long before the results of her mad 
ambitions became manifest.” 

The chateau fronted them, at the end of the fine, 
but now neglected avenue. And presently, amid a 
density of trees to the left, they discerned the chapel, 
separate from the house, but the door was locked to 
would-be worshippers; the path to it green with un¬ 
worn grass. Before the porch two giant oaks stood 
sentinel in the sombre dignity of an age to which the 
brief lives of counts and their countesses were but as 
the field flower, which to-day flourishes, and to¬ 
morrow is not. 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 25 

“Oh, it’s beautiful, beautiful,” cried Aylmer, “but, 
Christian, it’s so sad. ” 

“But that’s just it,” said the young man joyously. 
“Gaiety is cheap, but this stately desolation is worth 
a king’s ransom.” 

As they swept around the curve in front of the 
house, a blaze of begonias banked close to the grey 
walls gave pathetic evidence of a desire to cherish 
some remnant of that profusion of bud and blossom 
of which the starved parterre had once been prodigal. 

Aylmer never forgot that summer evening — the 
gloom of the wide, square hall, floored with slabs of 
black and white marble — the fading splendour of 
the salon, with its gilt of furniture lavishly inlaid, 
and the bloom of colour yet gay in rich brocade. 
From the walls the faces of dead and gone de 
Roannes looked down — men who had learnt 
through generations of experiment every trick of the 
ruler’s craft — and women of that texture of spirit 
and flesh born in the purple; serene in the belief of 
their divine right to the silks and laces of existence. 
It seemed to the girl that their eyes were ever upon 
her — jealous, avenging — as she and Christian ate 
their first meal together upon old coronetted linen, 
and from silver that had done service at the ban¬ 
quets of kings. 

Yet, light-hearted as children, they laughed, and 
went out together to watch from the balustraded ter¬ 
race the summer night lay its benediction of darkness 
upon the distant mountain peaks, forever white, un¬ 
changing; upon the lake, dimly blue in the distance; 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


26 

upon the wide plain beneath them stretching far, and 
dotted here and there with the clusters of cottages 
which clung together to make the tiny villages. 

That night Aylmer slept in a massive bedstead, 
with coronet-shaded canopy; above her head a silver 
crucifix hung against the silken draperies; she said her 
prayers at the crimson prie-dieu, for under the spell of 
this ancient roof, her sense of identity deserted her— 
the blood in her veins turned blue as any de Ro- 
anne’s; alone, in the bare, stately room which had har¬ 
boured many a mistress of high degree, she dreamed 
the dreams, played with the inmost thoughts, quiv¬ 
ered with the shy emotions which had once been the 
very heart-beat of some girl of kindred spirit, who had 
left enduring, but, to the uninitiated, invisible im¬ 
press of her soul upon the place which knew her no 
more. 

Aylmer said her innocent prayers, and put out the 
^‘bougie’’; then crept in darkness to the window and 
looked out upon the terrace. She caught the red glim¬ 
mer of her husband’s cigar; its dear perfume wafted 
upward to her window; she followed the faint fall of 
his steps with seeking ear. 

Ah, how she loved him! It was agony, the edge of a 
knife against her soul — to love like that. 

Marriage — what a mystery! Her girlish imagina¬ 
tion shrank from analysis, yet did other women — 
love as she did — and — yet — wonder ? Love ? — it 
was not as simple, as easy of understanding, as in her 
maiden heart she had dreamed it. 

Ah, Christian! he passed beneath her window — 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 2 ^ 

she thrilled in ev,.ry nerve, that thrill that rendered 
her strange — an alien to herself — that weakened 
the very fibres of her being. 

Love ? — for all her gibings long ago, she had en¬ 
visioned it as the answering of soul to soul. 

‘‘And it is — it is!” 

She stormed upon herself. 

Then in the darkness, she leaned towards him, and 
breathed upon the night a prayer, for him and her, 
husband and wife together. 

When Sunday came, Aylmer went to mass In 
the village church — the thrall and the passion of 
mysticism were strong within her in these days of 
honeymoon. Christian laughed; he found each mood 
of hers adorable, and when the crude, gauntly hu¬ 
man little service was over, she discovered him wait¬ 
ing to escort her home. 

“Oh, Christian, it was beautiful!” she exclaimed 
fervently, as they sat resting half-way up the steep 
ascent to the chateau. “I mean the faith these simple 
people have.” 

“But, my dear, it’s not faith. It’s superstition. And 
even their superstitions do not materially affect their 
practices. They still go out and lightly murder their 
fellow-man, and cheat themselves into believing that 
they can be bought out of purgatory. Their religion is a 
matter of dogmatized emotion—it has nothing in their 
minds to do with the ethical relation of man to man. ” 

“Oh, well, I don’t in the least care,” said Aylmer 
recklessly, “so long as they set up such a picturesque, 
relation with the Almighty.” 


28 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

They laughed together in the sunshine. 

' The days, golden in love’s young glory, passed 
lightly by. Aylmer became an ideal chatelaine. Even 
Mariette, proud miser of family tradition, ceased to 
grudge her the use of appointments dedicated by 
right to loftier service. Servants were few, the life se¬ 
verely simple, but the stamp of an elegance of ancient 
lineage was upon it. 

The chapel door was locked now only at night; 
Aylmer liked to slip in and sit and dream of the de 
Roannes at rest there. Next to the peasant countess 
lay the princess, in life divided as the poles, in death, 
both dust and de Roannes alike. What passion, what 
ardour of ambition, what frenzy of grief, what high 
desire, what imbecility of pomp and prowess lay here 
under like label! 

The people in the lonely villages, clustered low be¬ 
neath the purple Juras, hurried for sight of her, when 
carriage wheels swept the smooth road. For the long, 
exploring drives with Christian were a delight that 
never palled. The villages looked to her like pictures 
of themselves by a master hand. There was ever the 
thrifty woodpile reared high about each tiny home¬ 
stead; the red geraniums crowding the scant window, 
the group of women washing by the stream’s side; the 
ubiquitous hen, a-scrape and a-squawk; the loiterers 
about the social pump. Strange, masterful looking 
women, despite decrepitude—wee tots of children, 
grave already beneath the burden of life’s cares — 
how oddly they impressed her at times, as neither 
more nor less than marionettes, gifted with almost hu- 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


29 

man intelligence. She never succeeded in making her¬ 
self believe them entirely real; their use of impas¬ 
sioned gesture to illustrate the most trival emotion but 
went to prove that their moods were manufactured by 
a clever manipulation of strings. 

Long afterwards, Aylmer could recall with bitter 
distinctness such trifling memories of that dreamy 
summer — so insignificant, but so curiously persis¬ 
tent — the marvel of blue in the eyes of a white- 
smocked child phlegmatically shelling peas in a quaint 
old doorway; the light laugh of a girl loitering with a 
lad along a roadside beautified by star-stemmed con¬ 
volvuli — the shiver of a handful of bluebells in the 
wet wind; the arrogant splendour of a single spire of 
thistles against a bank of green. 

She learned to watch and to love the moods of the 
lonely Dole, from whose summit there descended 
upon the vineyards basking in the sunshine of the 
valley, the most wondrous of mist-wreathed, writhing 
storms. It was awesome, the Titanic power which 
worked out there, before her eyes, such mysteries of 
transformation, such horrors of blackness upon the 
summer blue. The mountains seemed to her more hu¬ 
man than the people who lived, careless of their 
grandeur, beneath them. 

At night sometimes, she awoke and closed her 
window; bolted it and drew the curtain across it, 
strange fear in her heart of the sombre heights be¬ 
neath whose giant shadows the human story was each 
day newly staged in weal or woe. Then in the morn¬ 
ing she smiled, when she looked out upon the Juras 


30 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

as innocent of tragedy, and as blue as the tender sky 
arched above them. 

She was happy-—Ah, so happy! Yet, one day, 
with her head against his shoulder, she said to Chris¬ 
tian: “Dear, I get so afraid. How can we be, always, 
as happy as this ? No one ever is, all the time. And I 
couldn’t bear it, now after I have once known, to have 
to be less happy. It makes me afraid of everything — 
of going home —■ of any thought of change. Every 
night I say : ‘Good-bye, beautiful day,’ and then for 
a moment it seems as if my heart would break. Dear, 
don’t you ever — ” 

“No, I don’t,” laughed Christian. “What do I care 
about to-morrow ? Sufficient unto the day are the joys 
thereof.” “Women — ” he pinched her ear — “why, 
they’re curious creatures. If they’re happy they can’t 
be content without analysing their condition to find 
out why they’re not unhappy. Men are different. If 
they’re in love with a woman who loves them, they 
know they’re happy, and they’re too darned glad of it 
to monkey with the situation. ” 

Aylmer smiled, for the moment content. 

And Christian watched her, his heart aflame. He, 
analyse his happiness! He had analysed his unhappi¬ 
ness, his loneliness, his longing for companionship, 
often enough. And he had dreamed—howpassionately 
he had dreamed — that somewhere within the hidden 
years, the wife of his visions awaited him. 

And at last, there had come to him, Aylmer — 
Aylmer! 

“Oh, you must come and look — quick!” cried 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 31 

Aylmer late that evening from the balcony. *^It’s so 
beautiful, but all in the weirdest way. There isn’t any¬ 
thing left in the world except the chateau, and the 
ground it stands on, and you and I.” 

For all about them the mist swam, vague, in- 
penetrable, shoreless. They looked out upon a 
world which was not. And were content, for were they 
not alone -— together alone ? 

The next morning as they sat at their dainty break¬ 
fast of honey and ‘‘little breads,” Mariette brought 
in the letters. Aylmer was soon absorbed in hers, a 
rare epistle from Sincerity, but she was abruptly re¬ 
called from it. 

“Hang it all, Aylmer! If this isn’t like Madam 
Bronsart! She’ll be here to-night, with Vonviette and 
Erica Rymal.” 

Aylmer looked at her husband without speaking, 
the colour rose in her face. 

“Suppose — suppose we run away,” he suggested 
aghast. 

“Oh, well, perhaps it’s time we had something to 
put up with,” said Aylmer bravely. 

“Ah, but my darling, I don’t want you to have any¬ 
thing to bear through me — not so much as the wrink¬ 
ling of a rose-leaf. ” 

They had had their honeymoon — the mists which 
had veiled them were lifting to let the world, unwel¬ 
comed, in upon them. 

“Oh, this dear, shabby chateau!” exclaimed Mrs. 
Bronsart with enthusiasm. “Doesn’t it make you 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


32 

think of ‘The Moated Grange/ and things like 
that?’' 

“I don't know. You see, there isn't any moat.” 
Aylmer laughed nervously. 

“Now, my dear, I do hope you aren’t a matter-of- 
fact person,” Mrs. Bronsart looked pensive. “I’m so 
poetical, so imaginative. You’ve no idea what a trial 
my temperament is to me at times. ” 

“No, nor to the rest of us,” interpolated Vonviette. 

“And this simply sweet tesellated pavement — 
black and white — perfectly dear, you know, but hor- 
libly gloomy and tomb-like. And these tapestries! 
Vonviette, we'd really better make a determined 
stand and buy them at once. I wouldn’t care what we 
paid, and I daresay we could get them cheap, if the 
thing is managed properly. My! What dreadful floors. 
The oldest part ? — Yes, I daresay, but I’d soon tear 
them up if the place was mine. These people never 
do understand the artistic possibilities of a place like 
this. Oh, that crucifix! Isn’t that the prettiest idea? 
It makes me feel quite emotional to look at it. I al¬ 
ways did believe in a proper amount of religion. I do 
trust, my dear, that you’re not a godless girl. ” 

“I’m not sure.” Aylmer struggled with laughter. 
“The term invites definition, doesn’t it?” 

“There it is—this dreadful modern spirit — al¬ 
ways picking and turning and analysing. Defini¬ 
tion!” Mrs. Bronsart waved the opprobrious word, 
with jewelled gesture, aside. ‘‘ Now there’s Von¬ 
viette — ” 

It seemed to Aylmer advisable that the subject 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 33 

be changed. “I hope you will like your room, Mrs. 
Bronsart,” she said considerately. 

‘‘My dear, anything pleases me. My tastes are the 
simplest. But the room’s very bare, isn’t it ? And 
dreadfully faded and fusty. Are you quite sure it’s 
clean ? The linen looks centuries old, doesn’t itYou 
might call that Mariette — dreadfully sour-tempered 
person. I’m afraid; quite depressing. I always require 
servants to look cheerful — I should speak to that 
Mariette about her temper, my dear, if I were you. Or 
perhaps I had better. One needs so much tact about 
things like that. Oh, I simply couldn’t sleep in these 
sheets. So many people must have, you know — it’s 
quite revolting to think of, isn’t it?—just ring the 
bell for that person, my dear, and I’ll have her replace 
this linen with my own — I always travel with sheets 
and things.” 

“But the bell doesn’t ring,” said Aylmer, “and 
really Mariette’s linen is — ” 

“The bell doesn’t ring!” exclaimed Mrs. Bronsart. 
“But how can one exist with a bell that doesn’t ring 
in one’s room?” 

“One lives here very simply,” explained Aylmer. 

“Simply! My dear, yes! I adore simplicity. But 
simplicity is not at all the same thing as savagery. To 
exist without a bell and without clothes, for instance, 
is savagery, but not simplicity.” 

“Don’t excite yourself. Maternal,” said Vonviette 
soothingly. “You can doubtless be equipped with a 
tin pan and an iron spoon with which to afflict the 
household according to your judgment of its deserts. 


34 the work of our hands 

I hope you don’t enjoy a quiet life, because henceforth 
you won’t have it,” she added, turning to Aylmer. 
“ But there are compensations, because you will find 
Maternal interesting only when she is exasperating. ” 

Mrs. Bronsart smiled, vaguely assured of compli¬ 
ment in her daughter’s remark. As the stepmother of 
Christian, and the mother of Vonviette, she was ac¬ 
customed to regard herself as a martyr to the cause of 
race perpetuation, and she had for so long serenely 
appropriated all the virtues, that it would have been 
impossible for her to consider apparent criticism of her¬ 
self as other than some subtle form of compliment. 

Erica Rymal appeared at dinner that night in a 
gown that would have graced a court function. She 
had come prepared to play whatever role the exigen¬ 
cies of the situation might demand; her first glance at 
Aylmer had settled the question, for it was a rule of 
life with her never to seek to vanquish a rival on her 
own ground. And just now she felt herself peculiarly 
fortunate, for the part Fate clearly assigned to her was 
the one above all others of which she was mistress; 
she was born to patch and powder. 

“Paris ?” she said to Christian — her voice had a 
curious, irritating charm, in spite, perhaps because of 
its insinuating drawl, and the slight, interrogative 
inflection by which she spared herself any possible 
odium of asseveration — “ Paris — Oh, it’s always 
the same Paris isn’t it ? And one loves it always with¬ 
out exactly knowing why, doesn’t one ?” 

Aylmer looked at her steadily, and felt suddenly the 
flash of positive, unconquerable aversion towards this 




THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


35 

languid, sinuous, slow-voiced woman. Already, she 
seemed to appropriate Christian, and delicately, to ig¬ 
nore his wife. Of course, they were old acquaintances 
— yes, but need she insistently proclaim the fact by 
continual reference to days of which Aylmer had no 
knowledge ? 

“But we know very well why we love Paris,’’ said 
Mrs. Bronsart firmly. “Just think of those dear peo¬ 
ple so perfectly inspired about one’s clothes, actually 
making poor, insignificant Me” — she held herself 
like a dowager empress — “feel like a — Oh, a mas¬ 
terpiece by Phidias or somebody. ” 

“ But really, have the sculptors ever done much to¬ 
wards the glorification of clothes.?” inquired Chris¬ 
tian blandly. 

Mrs. Bronsart ignored him, and turned to Aylmer. 
“My dear, I hope you approve of the nude in art,” 
she said earnestly. “ It’s so right, so very right, when 
properly understood. An artist we met in Munich, a 
most charming man, explained it all to me so spirit¬ 
ually. I really was most anxious to talk to his model 
and get her point of view, but I daresay she was not at 
all a nice sort of young woman. And, of course, it 
reaUy couldn’t matter to me in the least what she 
thought, because ‘to the pure,’ you know, and 
*honi soit* and all that — so very reassuring, isn’t 
it.?” 

“I daresay,” murmured Aylmer somewhat rebel- 
liously, “if one requires reassuring.” 

Later in the evening as she was hurrying to settle a 
dispute between Mariette and Mrs. Bronsart’s maid. 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


36 

she caught a glimpse of Christian on the terrace with 
Miss Rymal, and the first pang of loneliness she had 
known darted through her — these people all had 
memories in common of a past in which she had had 
no part. 

“ Vonviette, when did you last hear from Doujat 
inquired Mrs. Bronsart as they sat drinking tea under 
the trees the next afternoon. 

“I couldn’t possibly remember, Maternal. Prob¬ 
ably he does, though, which is sufficient. And while 
we are speaking of him, mother mine, I might as well 
remark that I do not consider it fitting that you should 
refer to your prospective son-in-law as ‘Doujat.’” 

“Vonviette, what do you mean.^” demanded 
Christian abruptly. 

“Mean, brother only Why, just that I think my 
honoured mother ought to refer to my betrothed — ” 

“Your betrothed!” The young man turned to Mrs. 
Bronsart. “Why has this never been mentioned? 
What have you let Vonviette do ?” 

“ Really, Christian, you are most trying, ” said Mrs. 
Bronsart in a fatigued tone. “I’m sure my poor child 
hasn’t done anything in the least unbecoming. I’m 
sure, Doujat — Monsieur Doujat, as you wish all that, 
Vonviette — is the most delightful man — such perfect 
manners. The very way he sits on a chair is enough to 
make any sensitive woman adore him, and to see him 
play tennis is simply the most delirious thing. He won 
the Derval championship in the most elegant style — it 
isn’t in him to get all hot and clammy. And he’s per¬ 
fectly devoted to Vonviette, although I must say his 



THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


37 

mother and sisters, disgusting, dried up old shahs, 
treated us detestably, and said the most vulgar things 
about nouveaux riches, and all that. They seemed to 
think he was a great catch for Vonviette, but I assur¬ 
ed them we didn^t think so at all — that we had every 
right to expect to do much better. I am sure, Chris¬ 
tian, that you know, when you are in a reasonable 
frame of mind, that your poor father’s little wife knows 
at least how to uphold the family dignity.” And the 
reproached lady arranged her ineffective drab eyes in 
pensive contemplation of the clouds enveloping Mont 
Blanc. 

“My poor father’s little wife,” began Christian 
patiently, “you tell me that this man, whom you 
have allowed to become engaged to my sister, sits en- 
chantingly upon a chair, and wins a tennis cham¬ 
pionship with unsweating ease and grace. Now, 
might I inquire, just what impressed you as his par¬ 
ticular qualifications to be the husband of Vonviette 

“ But haven’t I been telling you, Christian ? Haven’t 
I always said to Vonviette: ‘ My dear, marry a gentle¬ 
man at any sacrifice. He will know how to use his 
knife and fork, and drink his coffee agreeably, which 
so many, I daresay, quite excellent men do not, and 
which makes life a nightmare to their wives.” 

“I see,” said Christian hopelessly. “But, after all, 
the moral qualifications of this — this — Doujat ?” 

Mrs. Bronsart sat up briskly. “Now, there, dear 
Christian, right there, I must take issue with you. 
What in the world could a nice girl like my dear Von¬ 
viette, brought up as she has been, have to do with a 


38 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

man's morals ? Why, the very suggestion of such a 
thing is intolerable to a refined woman's mind. I 
should not wish to know anything whatever about the 
morals of M. Doujat. It would be most unpleasant. 
I am sure he is far too much of a gentleman ever to 
annoy Vonviette with them. I call the admiration and 
regard of a Frenchman for a young girl's purity the 
most charming thing." 

‘Wonviette!" Christian spoke sharply. 

The girl lifted her eyes from the book which she had 
been lazily reading in apparent disregard of the argu¬ 
ment waxing hot over her personal affairs. 

“Brother mine, don't vex your serious soul," she 
remarked kindly. “I don't in the least mean to marry 
the man." 

“You don't mean to marry the man .? Then what in 
thunder do you mean ?" 

“Don't mean anything. 'Tisn't my nature to." 

“But you are engaged to him ?" 

“Oh, that.? Yes." 

“Vonviette!" Her brother looked at her steadily. 
Erica Rymal laughed softly. 

Vonviette laid down her book. “I see I might as 
well explain to you first as last. I went forth in search 
of an emotion — it occurred to me that it would be 
interesting to see what it felt like to be engaged to a 
Frenchman — to know how he made love. It had al¬ 
ways seemed to me that a Frenchman must have an 
india-rubber sort of little soul — I wanted to find out 
all about it." She reached for her book. 

“Wait!" said Christian. His heart filled with sud- 





THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


39 

den tenderness for this little girl, abroad in creation, 
sampling emotions with the cold curiosity of a cynic. 
“Did you find out all that you wanted to know/" 

“Not all, but enough. But to know just how a 
Frenchman loves, one should be a French girl. Henri 
Doujat loves me, or thinks he does, which for all prac¬ 
tical purposes amounts to the same thing, but in mak¬ 
ing love to me he unfortunately pursues what he be¬ 
lieves to be the American method. The result is a 
failure. And, as far as I am concerned, the episode is 
closed."’ 

“But the man,"" said Aylmer, “after all,have you 
never considered him If he loves you — or thinks he 
does, which you say amounts to the same thing — 
why, he will suffer, or think he does — "" she smiled 
— “and is it quite fair to use his emotions as a mere 
means of experiment?"" 

“ But, my dear, is it nothing that I afford him the 
opportunity to suffer ? After all, it"s a debatable ques¬ 
tion, isn’t it, whether one is happiest when suffering, 
or most miserable when happiest ? Henri Doujat is 
really having the best possible time breaking his heart 
over me.” 

Christian looked sternly at his stepmother. What 
a curse her companionship had been to this girl, who 
still seemed so fair, so blue-eyed, so innocently pink 
and white. 

“ Dear, said Aylmer a few days later to her husband 
“I’m homesick.” She hid her eyes from him. 

He looked at her a moment in silence. Then he said; 
“I see. I don’t wonder.” He stroked her hair tenderly. 


40 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

“It’s not Vonviette — I like her. It’s — iVs — 
Miss Rymal. I can’t bear it — I can’t bear her. She 
says such detestable things to Vonviette — to tor¬ 
ment me — that a man’s fancy for his wife, is, from 
the necessity of the bond which endeavours to make 
it permanent, the least interesting and charming to 
him of his attachments.” 

Christian laughed. 

“Oh, but you mustn’t laugh, dear.” Tears stood 
suddenly in her eyes. 

“I see.” Christian thought a few moments. “Dear, 
how would you like to sail from Cherbourg on Satur¬ 
day?” 

“On Saturday ?” Aylmer’s face glowed. 

“We’re going off to-morrow on a little excursion,” 
Christian casually remarked as he bade his guests 
good-night a few days later. “We are not just sure 
when we shall get back.” 

“Going away for several days? Oh, impossible, 
quite impossible!” exclaimed Mrs. Bronsart briskly. 
“I really could not be left alone in this dreadful place. 
And that Mariette — she would murder with one 
hand while she told her heathenish beads with the 
other. I have seen murder, positive murder in her eye 
when she looked at poor, little, defenceless me. That 
is what comes of being considerate to such people — 
they turn and rend you on the slightest pretext. ” 

“My sainted mother, do let these young things get 
away by themselves for once,” said Vonviette. 
“Good-hye,” she added indifferently. “I hope you 
will have a delightful excursion.” 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 4 1 

Aylmer looked regretfully at the child; she mustwrite 
from Paris and explain—^Vonviette would understand. 

But, when two days later, they climbed the gang¬ 
way of the great liner, they were gravely received on 
board by Vonviette herself. 

“ Fm here first, of course, because I didn’t stay over 
in Paris as you did,” she explained a trifle tremu¬ 
lously. Then she laughed. ‘‘You forgot, didn’t you, 
that I was Christie Bronsart’s daughter?” 

“Great Scott! Where’s your baggage?” 

“I haven’t any, except a few details, such as my 
tooth-brush and a shoe-lace. ” 

“Dear child, Fm glad you’re here,” exclaimed 
Aylmer, heartily, “ but what will your mother say ?” 

“She will take it for granted at first that I have 
eloped with Henri Doujat, and that will interest and 
amuse her. You see, I had been considering coming 
with you from the first, but I did think that wasn’t 
quite fair to you. But when I found the morning after 
you left that ma mere intended to arrange that Mon¬ 
sieur Doujat should come down to the chateau to stay 
— well, that was the last straw. ” 

Alone, Aylmer stood and watched the faint blue 
line of France fade upon the far sky. 

Away, forever away from her, there, beyond the 
dimness, lay those happy days. 

Happy ? — had they been that ? 

And what awaited her, there in the open west, where 
sunset-silvered clouds drifted upon the dark sea’s edge ? 

Night fell, chill and grey, and still she stood there, 
wondering. 


I 


CHAPTER FOUR 


HRISTIAN, what do you suppose Mrs. 
Morris wants me to do 



“I don’t see that there is anything Mrs. 
Morris would be privileged to want my wife to do,” 
answered Christian with mock loftiness. 

“She wants me to collect from the men in the shops 
for the Aged Women’s Home.” 

“You?” Christian laughed. The idea of his wife, 
his elegant, exclusive wife, employed in such a cause 
amused him. 

“You see, she thinks they would have far more in¬ 
terest in giving to me than to any one else. I told her I 
thought it was shabby to ask workingmen to give 
money to anything, but that quite horrified her. She 
argued that the privilege was their right just as it was 
ours. ” 

“Do as you like, dear, of course, but my advice to 
you would be not to begin that kind of thing. It will 
lead to your being inveigled into all sorts of uninter¬ 
esting and undesirable enterprises. As far as the argu¬ 
ment goes, I think Mrs. Morris is right. Wages 
are high — there are no starving workmen these 
days.” 


42 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 43 

Christian threw down his paper, and rose from 
the breakfast-table. 

‘‘Aylmer, what a darling you are,’’ he said softly, 
as he stooped to kiss her. 

She laughed — then went to the window to watch 
him down the street. For after three years he was — 
yes, he was her lover still. And those little habits, 
formed in the early days of marriage, had the hold of 
sentiment upon Aylmer. But she sighed. That talk 
yesterday had disturbed her. It seemed to her that she 
had spent three years just in learning to be a great 
lady — Oh, she had learnt her lesson, but was that to 
be all ? 

A few evenings later she sat alone with her hus¬ 
band in the library, enjoying the rarity of an undis¬ 
turbed evening. The room was a delight to the eye, 
hued in tones of green, and furnished in the most 
luxurious simplicity — it was a sumptuous cell in 
which to cloister the world’s great thinking. 

“Oh, by the way — why, Aylmer, I had quite for¬ 
gotten — are you going through the Works collecting, 
as you spoke of 

“I’ve been,” said Aylmer. She was sitting, listless, 
in front of the fire — it was a chill spring evening — 
her hands idle in her lap. But as she spoke she held 
them out before her, and looked at them, turning 
them this way and that, as if to let the gems upon them 
reveal their utmost beauty in the red flame’s glow. 
But there was scorn in her eyes. 

“Look at them!” she said. “Pretty, pretty hands. 
And what good are they ? What good is it to anybody 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


44 

that Fm here in the world with them ? They can play 
a little and embroider a little, and they help, but only 
help, take care of me. That’s all. It really wouldn’t 
matter much if I didn’t have them. ” 

Then she was silent. So was Christian. But pres¬ 
ently she added: “I was thinking when you spoke, of 
that great verse — The work of our hands, establish 
Thou it .— ” She stood up, suddenly breathless. ‘‘Oh, 
think, think of the majesty of a human being who has 
earned the right to look his Creator in the face, and 
demand that the work of his hands shall be estab¬ 
lished!” 

“Aylmer!” 

She dropped back into her seat, listless again. 
“Yes, isn’t it odd to hear me talk like this ? Vonviette 
would say I had a severe attack of the tragics. I have. 
I have had since the day before yesterday. Oh, how 
long ago that seems!” 

“What happened 

Aylmer hesitated. “Oh, you see, I went to the 
Shops. I felt so out of place. I didn’t even know what 
to wear, for I remembered that I had once heard of a 
poor woman’s saying that she didn’t like ladies to 
come to see her in their plain clothes — that she 
thought she was as fit to see their fine things as any¬ 
body. But somehow my clothes all seemed so different 
when I tried to look at them through the eyes of the 
men I was going to see. I don’t know what I looked 
like finally.” 

“I know,” said Christian, glad of a remark he 
could make. 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


45 

“You! But you aren’t any gauge at all.” She looked 
at him with eyes which slowly grew tender. “You’re a 
prejudiced juror. Well, I went to the office — I didn’t 
drive — I didn’t think it was fitting under the circum¬ 
stances; yet I could scarcely crawl — I was so nervous 
— it seemed to me I would give a year of my life to 
escape.” 

“And why under heaven should you do a thing that 
you hate doing ?” 

“Ah, but I had to. Don’t you know that there’s a 
fierce kind of joy in making yourself do the thing you 
don’t want to do ? ” 

“ I believe some rarefied spirits pretend to find it 
so” — Christian pinched his wife’s cheek teasingly — 
“but I’ve consistently fitted my conduct to a prin¬ 
ciple which involved my always persuading some 
other fellow that he wanted to do the thing I did 
not.” 

“No, you don’t always. But that’s just what people 
like we are, have always the opportunity of doing. 
Well, I saw your father — he said you were at Hay¬ 
wood, and I was so glad, because if you had seen me 
you would have had to laugh at me — I felt so woe¬ 
begone — but Mr. Bronsart was so kind — he always 
is to me, you know — he called up Monteith and in¬ 
troduced him to me so nicely — we shook hands and 
started out.” 

“Well?” inquired Christian presently. 

“Oh, I was there, I daresay, for about two hours.” 
Then Aylmer paused again. 

“Surely the men behaved properly to you ?” Chris- 


46 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

tian felt himself easily in the mood for righteous 
angering. 

“I don’t know. That depends upon one’s point of 
view, I suppose. I have been trying to discover what 
mine is, ever since. Oh, most did. Some were gentle¬ 
men — gentlemen of quite a fine type I thought.” 

“But some — some were rude Christian’s voice 
was sharp. 

“That’s it, you see. I’m not sure. There was one 
man that I wished I might have seen alone, without 
Monteith — I wish he could have said to me all that 
he thought. He said a good deal as it was, and I have 
been trying ever since to discover whether in his place, 
I should not think just as he does, perhaps. I mean, 
whether I should not be driven to think as he does, 
even with the same mind and prejudices that I have 
now.” 

“Yes, but what did he say to you ?” 

“Oh, I think at first I did fancy that he meant to be 
impertinent. I suppose we are always inclined to 
think it impertinent when people like that ask ques¬ 
tions we find difficult to answer. He asked who were 
the aged women in the home I said they were deserv¬ 
ing women who in their old age found themselves 
without adequate means of support. What did I mean 
by deserving ? I said I understood that to mean wo¬ 
men who had worked faithfully and hard during their 
lives. Why, then, were they without means of sup¬ 
port ^ I said that of course I did not know — I sup¬ 
posed they had been unfortunate in one way and an¬ 
other. Would I explain what I meant by unfortunate 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 47 

“The devil take the fellow’s impudence!” ejacu¬ 
lated Christian. 

“No, I don’t think so,” said Aylmer. “You must 
remember that you have not heard how he talked — 
nor what he looked like. I shall never forget his face 
— his eyes — Oh, wonderful eyes! I would have 
talked to him just to watch them.” 

Christian moved restlessly in his chair. He felt at 
that moment that in any other woman it would have 
been poor taste to observe a workman’s eyes. And as 
Aylmer divined his feeling, she said nothing further as 
to the young man’s appearance; she merely saw be¬ 
fore her as she talked, the fine dark head, despite the 
grime — the young eager face, with its extraordinary 
vividity of expression, which made all other faces dull 
clay beside it. 

“I tried to explain that by unfortunate I meant 
poor, and perhaps with large families to bring up, and 
that such women deserved the best we could give 
them. Give them! Oh, but he was scornful. And what 
did I mean by the best ^ Would the best I might give 
them do much towards satisfying me, for instance ? 
And what right had any one to insult such women by 
charity. Think of the lives they had led, he said — 
taking in washing week after week when their hus¬ 
bands were out of work — scouring, cleaning, turn¬ 
ing their hands to anything, and with half-a-dozen 
children at their heels. He asked me if I had ever con¬ 
sidered that in the hard times it’s the women who turn 
to and support the families. But then, when they’re 
old and worked out why don’t their children support 


48 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

them ? I said that so often their children could not — 
that they had their own responsibilities. ‘But you 
could support your mother ? ’ he said. ‘ What have you 
done to deserve a privilege that is denied to others ?’ 
You see, Christian, I couldn’t say anything. And 
Monteith got angry — he wanted to hurry me away. 
But I wouldn’t go. The man was honest — I wanted 
to hear what he said.” 

“Oh, I daresay. But you see, Aylmer, I do not care 
for my wife to be subjected to a workman’s honesty, 
however discontented it may be. These people suflFer 
from the deep underlying dissatisfaction with life, 
which has marked all ages and all conditions of men. 
Highly imaginative spirits, poets and such like, hurl 
their indignation at being here amid unpleasant con¬ 
ditions, at their Creator; the labouring man suffers 
exactly the same mental disturbance, but is less dis¬ 
criminating as to its cause, and hurls his indignation 
at his employer. He strikes for higher wages, because 
like all the rest of us, he wants more happiness than 
he has got, and he blindly takes for granted that he 
will get in that way what men have never yet obtained 
by that method.” 

“ Still, if I had a family of six children to support by 
taking in washing it does seem that it would make a 
great difference to what I know in me as happiness, 
whether I got a dollar or a dollar and a quarter a day. 
Think of it — a dollar and a quarter a day. You see, 
it has haunted me ever since — the thought of the 
women who support their families with such terrible 
bodily labour. And then think of me — I never know 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


49 

what it is to be tired, except from the effort to get myself 
amused. Think of it — suppose I spend all the long 
years of life that may be before me, just as I have 
spent the last three, there will never then come for me 
a day when I can look up, and say: The work of my 
hands, establish Thou it.’’ 

“Do you know what I think,” said Christian — he 
made a severe effort to speak lightly — “I think you 
have got into a very morbid frame of mind since you 
went a-soliciting for the Aged Ladies. You’ve picked 
up a burden that it’s not your business to carry. These 
be mighty problems, the solving of which must rest 
upon other shoulders than yours, sweetheart. There 
are so many people worrying over them now-a-days, 
good conscientious people, whether one agrees with 
them or not — that my wife can well afford to leave 
the matter in other hands.” 

“Yes, it would seem so. But” — Aylmer hesitated, 
then she was driven on — “that was what he said was 
always the answer — that if a day ever came when I 
began to think of these things I should be told that 
the matter was not for me — that great wrongs can 
only be righted by great forces. He said that was a lie 
— that great wrongs call for their righting through 
the devotion, the sacrifice, the service of a man here, a 
woman there. Christian” — her tone pleaded — “he 
said some wonderful things. I shall never forget them. 
Wrong is never impersonal. The awful total of human 
misery which stirs us so little in the aggregate, is 
made up of a child’s tears, a woman’s anguish, a 
man’s despair, and he told me that upon me — upon 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


50 

me alone — there was laid the responsibility of deed 
sion — from the moment — the moment of my listen¬ 
ing to him/’ 

She paused, for she was remembering — things she 
must not repeat. She was back amid the clangour 
and outcry of machinery again — listening, while that 
young face held her, with its dark, demanding eyes. 
The beauty of the voice — how did he, a workman 
come by it ? — he was repeating Carlyle to her. “You 
remember — ‘Difficulty, abnegation, martyrdom, 
death, are the allurements that act on the heart of 
man.’ They will act on you, if you are only worthy. 
Don’t you want to be And for a moment after that 
he had looked at her, as might a prophet of old, un¬ 
afraid — then had turned back to his work. 

“Oh, of course, I see, the fellow is evidently a 
genius of his sort,” said Christian after an uneasy 
silence. “ But what interests me is to know whether he 
gave you anything but talk towards alleviating the 
distresses of the old women.” 

“Yes, five dollars. That quite staggered me, for I 
had not been getting more than fifty or seventy-five 
cents. Naturally, when he gave me that so quickly I 
felt it only polite to listen to him. But he told me that 
he thought the really humane thing to do would be to 
kill the old ladies off as the people we are accustomed 
to call savages do.” 

Christian was silent. Doubtless she had offended 
him. But why ? Must she never be other than the gay 
toy, devoid of serious concern in life Must she do her 
thinking alone ? 




THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 51 

Presently she said lightly: ‘‘Oh, Christian, you 
can’t think what odd things some of the men said. 
One of them told me I need not expect to get anything 
out of him — wasn’t he running an Aged Women’s 
Home of his own, with his wife’s mother and his own 
both under the same roof? He wished I’d get him the 
position of matron at the Home with quarters for the 
two included, for he thought he might find it easier to 
handle them by the quantity than by the pair. He said 
that I should find upon investigation that the fact that 
they were both still alive was ample testimony as to 
the perfection of his temper, and that he contemplat¬ 
ed going into literature, as nothing that had yet been 
written approached the subject of the mother-in-law 
in the truly artistic spirit.” 

“Well, the fellow certainly deserves some stars in 
his crown,” observed Christian genially. He was 
thankful that the conversation had shifted to a less 
dangerous quarter; it disturbed him to come upon 
traces of gunpowder in his wife’s character. 

“Then there was another man who told me that 
’savin’ yourself, young Mrs. Bronsart,’ he hadn’t any 
use whatever for the women, young or old. He had 
tried being the son of one, the husband of two, and 
the father of four, so that he was well qualified to 
speak, and he was sorry to tell me that he could say 
nothing in defence of the species. His advice would 
be to burn down the Home with the old ladies in it. 
But some of the men were so nice — they told me 
about their children and their wives. One of them, 
Tim Arkell, has an invalid wife — I said I would go 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


52 

to see her. Oh, I felt so diflFerent when I came away 
— I felt like a real human being, akin to a whole 
world that I had known nothing of.’' 

Ah, there it was again in her voice! — the serious, 
insubordinate note. 

There was a knock; the door opened, and Forsythe 
came in; there was a halting shyness in his manner. 

“Oh, dad, how dear of you!” exclaimed Aylmer. 

“But how does it happen ?” 

For he came there so rarely — in his own house he 
was able to forget that his daughter was no longer his, 
but here — the taint of the Bronsart was over all. 

“Fve been at prayer-meeting, my dear, and as I 
passed —well, it seemed as if I just came in, I don’t 
know how. And what are you two so deep in talk 
about to-night Are you planning the new wing .?*” 

“The new wing — I had quite forgotten that. 1 
don’t want anything new, dad dear — wings or any¬ 
thing else. I think I have already spent so much — 
much more than is my share, that there isn’t anything 
coming to me for the rest of my life.” 

“Well, there’s a good economical wife,” remarked 
Forsythe — willing to be pleasant when he could — 
to his son-in-law. 

“Oh, but dad, it isn’t that I want to be economical. 
You see, I thought about that, too, as I walked home 
the other day” — she nodded at her husband — 
“it’s a crime for people like us to be economical. The 
least we can do is to try to distribute what we have too 
much of and others not enough.” 

“Your daughter has been interviewing the men in 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 53 

the shops/’ said Christian explanatorily, “and nat¬ 
urally they have enlightened her as to the injustice of 
economic conditions.” 

“Oh, I daresay; trust them,” said Forsythe unin¬ 
terestedly. “ But what were you doing in the shops, 
my dear ?” 

The incongruity of his daughter — his daughter, 
always so sumptuously apparelled, from the jewelled 
comb in her cloudy hair to the toy of a shoe on her 
dainty foot — “interviewing” the men of sweat and 
grime in the shops, struck him as appalling. 

“Collecting, dad, for one of the charities. But the 
men were very good to me.” 

“Well, what self-control it shows, that they re¬ 
frained from abusing you. I suppose there was some¬ 
one with you to protect you in case of violence ?” 

“Dad, you’re not good to-night, even if you have 
just come from meeting.” 

Forsythe smiled indulgently, and leaning back in 
his chair, looked at his daughter with satisfied eyes. 
How he had suffered! — he had endured humiliation 
too bitter for remembrance. But the Lord had made 
to him atonement. The very continuance of the Bron- 
sart name depended upon his child — his! —Ah, he 
had lived to see her become the most important factor 
in a dominant family; in the hollow of her slender 
hand she held the happiness of his enemy. Such was 
the strange requital of the years. The son in whom 
all Christie Bronsart’s ambitions centred, depended 
for his happiness upon Aylmer, for the wife — Ah, 
she made or marred the man. 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


54 

His child — his child! What unconfessed pride he 
took in her splendour — in the dignity with which 
she filled her high place. He exulted in the luxury 
which surrounded her — yet it was but that to which 
she had been rightfully born. 

Yesterday, in the street, she had espied him in the 
distance, and had dashed down upon him, driving 
two high-spirited horses. ‘^Dad!’’ she had cried in the 
voice that was so like her mother’s; he turned from 
the man with whom he was talking, and there she 
was, Aylmer! She leaned down from her high seat and 
kissed his worn face with her sweet lips. ‘‘That’s all,” 
she said. “I had to — just had to.” 

He stepped back to the man, upon whom he was 
proudly aware of the effect of the little scene. “Par¬ 
don me — it was my daughter,” he said with sim¬ 
plicity, but his old heart was beating fiercely. 

“No, Fm not going to have any new wings, or any 
other luxuries this year,” she repeated now. “Fm 
going to divide my weekly housekeeping money with 
about forty families — I think that would somewhat 
reduce things to their right proportions.” 

Forsythe smiled tolerantly. There were vagaries 
of speech and even conduct to be expected of a girl 
who found herself in a position to play at will with 
this or that theory of life. It was impossible to admit 
fears as to his daughter’s ultimate common-sense. 

Some weeks later Aylmer inquired of Monteith as 
to the young man who had talked with her. 

“He was dismissed, ma’am,” said Monteith awk¬ 
wardly. 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 55 

“Oh, was he?’’ She was silent. Then she asked; 
“ Mr. Monteith, did my husband know of his being 
dismissed ?” 

“I — I guess so, ma’am,” replied the foreman with 
evident reluctance. 

“Why, oh why did I ask that ?” she demanded of 
herself afterwards. “What an underhand thing of me 
to do! And as if I didn’t know!” 

But who had he been, and where had he gone ? 


CHAPTER FIVE 


T he Bronsarts were Episcopalians of the con¬ 
ventional type; they assumed at stated inter¬ 
vals the outward appearance of inward piety 
in the same manner in which they applied to them¬ 
selves their clothes. 

To Aylmer the innate godlessness of her husband’s 
family had been a revelation. Her father, with the fer¬ 
vour of a long line of Covenanters in his veins, had 
frequently required of her more religious experience 
than she could furnish; it was by the shock of con¬ 
trast that she now became able to appreciate the 
beauty of that stern background of faith against 
which Forsythe’s life had outlined itself. She could 
not remember a crisis, great or small, when the ulti¬ 
mate appeal had not been to that Mighty Force above 
human life known to her father as God. His magnifi¬ 
cent belief in the power which kept eternal watch 
above him had given to his nature a dignity which 
linked the daily occurrences of the common lot to the 
sublime. In the home of Aylmer’s girlhood the day 
had begun at the foot of the Throne; it must have 
taken a soul void of sympathy to scoff at the amazing 
intimacy, the community of interest between John 
56 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 57 

Forsythe and his Lord. His religion had given scope 
to an imagination which demanded for itself large 
place — it was a great nature, which, suffering bitter¬ 
est temporal disaster, had coerced itself into accept¬ 
ing material defeat as spiritual aggrandisement. 

Thus the girl had grown up in an atmosphere in 
which every act, every decision was brought to the bar 
of the Invisible. It was mighty training for a young, 
vivid imagination. 

With the blood of generations of Presbyterianism 
staunch in his veins, it was inevitable that Forsythe 
should hope that by some miracle of influence, of in¬ 
herited adhesion to the faith for which her forebears 
had died, his daughter would lead the erring Episco¬ 
palian goat into the true fold. But Aylmer gave the 
matter no thought whatever; she had always heard 
so much of religion that she was undoubtedly relieved 
of strain when at first she heard so little. 

But now, after the most intimate experience among 
people who knew no God and were glad of it, the girl’s 
soul was unconsciously athirst for a drop of that living 
water of which in her youth she had been given over¬ 
deep draught. Life grew thin — it showed strangely 
threadbare under the garish light of a vulgarizing in¬ 
terpretation of human destiny and endeavour. 

Aylmer loved her husband; she still idealized him. 
Yet she had even wondered whether she idealized 
him for his sake — or her own. When that idea first 
occurred to her, it amused her — the perception of 
such a possibility was a tribute to her own acuteness 
— later, the thought frightened her. Christian was so 


58 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

nearly perfect — so nearly. If only something would 
happen to disturb the ease, the gilded serenity of his 
days — to force him out into that process of evolution 
of which circumstance at present denied him the op¬ 
portunity. His father bore alone the heavy responsi¬ 
bilities of the business — it was his nature to do so, 
and his son had been trained not to dispute the 
privilege with him. 

Yet she was tolerant, for in her heart there was the 
suspicion common to the species Wife, that it was idle 
to expect that her husband should appreciate the lofti¬ 
ness of her particular ideals. A man ? — why, he was 
on a lower plane; one could love him devotedly and yet 
admit that. Nay, it was because one loved that one 
perceived it — sometimes in sorrow, and sometimes 
in tenderly humorous acceptance of his inevitable 
limitations — being man that he was. 

To Christian his affection for his wife was as the air 
that he breathed — he neither analysed nor idealized 
it. In the three years that she had been his, she had 
given him many uneasy moments, but no miserable 
ones. He had at times a vague impression of depths in 
her unknown to his knowledge of women, but like 
most happy husbands he was without curiosity con¬ 
cerning them. And as there was never any direct con¬ 
flict between them, he grew into an easy belief in him¬ 
self as benevolent, non-interferent. Unquestionably, 
between a woman of such strong character as Aylmer 
and a man of less wisdom than himself there would 
have been collision — he pitied the men who failed of 
the tact to accommodate their convictions to their 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


59 

wives’ moods. In a relation as appallingly reciprocal 
as that of marriage, the man was surely a fool who 
would not exercise his ingenuity in keeping the wo¬ 
man who was his wife in love with him. He had every¬ 
thing to gain by that condition of her emotions, and 
nothing to lose. 

As to the absoluteness of his wife’s affection for 
him, a doubt never entered Christian’s mind. Aside 
from the question of that inevitable affinity between 
them, dear to the lover’s imaginings, it was impossible 
to his interpretation of Aylmer’s character to con¬ 
ceive of her in the wife’s relation to a man she did not 
love. 

When at times he became conscious of a certain 
restlessness beneath the surface, he soothed his fears 
with the hope that they would some day have a child 
to absorb her superfluity of aspiration. It was indeed 
an empty life, as she had so often said to him — that 
of a woman of the leisured class. But he never spoke 
to her of a child, lest she construe his remarks into an 
expression of regret at their having none. 

And Aylmer, though she sometimes felt almost hurt 
that he seemed to care so little, was quite content to 
let such a sleeping dog lie. Christian loved her ab¬ 
sorbingly; that satisfied; so be it. And the thought of 
a child awed — almost shocked her. What a strange, 
what a terrible experience for a woman — she was 
satisfied to remain a girl in her ignorance of it. So 
many of the women of her acquaintance who had 
married and had children seemed to lose grace and 
delicacy, mentally as well as physically. 


6o THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

Husband and wife — they loved each other and 
knew it — they assured each other that their hearts 
asked nothing from the world without. He never 
thought of her as possible or desirable, other than 
just what she was — she imaged him continually as 
all that her ideal demanded — if— ! 

It was the eternal difference between the man’s 
love and the woman’s. 

Yet though the Bronsarts had no faith that could 
be described as such, Christie Bronsart ‘‘ran” the 
church to which he belonged as inevitably as he ran 
every other organization in which he had an interest. 
To be its heaviest contributor made slight demand 
upon his pocket-book, and put a pressure upon more 
pious and more parsimonious brethren which caused 
him much satisfaction at times. “Salvation’s free, but 
it costs a pile to offer it,” was a remark of his when 
heading a subscription list with a sum calculated to 
make the next man wince. 

It was therefore a foregone conclusion that when 
the Church of the Ascension was in need of a new rec¬ 
tor the selection should rest ultimately with Christie 
Bronsart. 

“Yes, but this fellow baffles me,” he said to his son 
one afternoon, as they sat together in his office just be¬ 
fore closing time. “Oh, he’s the man for the place — 
that’s settled — but I feel that I know less about him 
than I ever knew of any man to whom I offered a 
seven thousand dollar salary.” 

“Seven thousand.? I thought you had boiled it 
down to five.” Christian looked athis father in surprise. 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 6l 

“We had. That’s one of the funny things about it. 
You see, he led the noon meeting of the Y. M. C. A. 
to-day — we didn’t want him to preach on Sunday — 
Hanscombe warned me that if the people once heard 
him preach we’d never be able to hold them — they’d 
have him whether the committee approved or not. 
But we did want to hear how he’d handle the sort of 
crowd that goes to that kind of meeting. Well, sir, I 
went to hear him — never go near the place — that 
white-livered secretary makes me sick — well, by 
Christopher! Oh, you’ll have to hear him to under¬ 
stand — but I don’t know what it is he says — and 
’tisn’t because he’s got any fixed up way of saying it. 
Oh, maybe he has, too — he’s as quiet — I expect 
there’s a good deal of cheap shouting in that place as 
a rule — and he has a wonderful voice — great asset 
for a parson, that; but ’tisn’t that theatrical kind of 
quiet, and that tricked up elocutionary sort of voice 
either. Oh, I don’t know — the quiet’s in the man.” 

Bronsart got up and paced the office restlessly — 
his son watched him with amusement, his father’s 
frame of mind being too unusual to be ignored. 

“Saw Forsythe there — guess he generally is when 
he’s at home. Say — religion’s a great thing — do you 
know it.? — if those fellows only knew how to adver¬ 
tise the goods. This chap does. Bless your heart, I 
just knew all about the way Forsythe was feeling — 
he was all a-quiver, I could see that, and for the first 
time since I’ve known him I thought perhaps he 
wasn’t as big a fool as I had supposed. I tell you the 
kind of thing that’ll take hold of an every-day man. 


62 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

and make him feel like an archangel isn’t to be 
despised.” 

‘‘You’ll soon be going to the mourner’s bench your¬ 
self at this rate,” observed Christian. 

Bronsart laughed enjoyingly. “Sounds like it, don’t 
it ? I tell you when it came to his prayer — well, if he 
was in business he’d have to take out a patent mighty 
quick on his method, but I guess the spirit of man 
can’t be imitated as easily as the work of his 
hands. That prayer — Gee! you could have heard a 
feather fall. He just talked — Oh, Lord, no! he didn’t, 
but he gave you the impression that he was all alone 
with — Oh, kind of like Moses in the burning bush 
my mother used to read about when I was a boy. 
Well, by Christopher, I bet it would have given you 
the most magnificent creeps to listen to it. Oh, that 
prayer wasn’t any bazaar of all nations — it didn’t 
rake in every country on the map and the heavens 
above and the earth beneath and all that rot — ’twas 
just a mighty solemn conclave of us two and no 
more.” 

“Yes, but what did the fellow say?” demanded 
Christian. “You know with all due respect to you, 
father, there’s a pretty wide streak of the woman in 
your make-up when it comes to some things. You can 
get the better of any man or bunch of men you ever 
stood up to, but that’s a fact just the same.” 

“Say, did you suppose I wasn’t on to that Bron¬ 
sart looked quizzically at his son. “I guess I had an 
understanding with my mother before I was born that 
there wasn’t to be any more of my father in my mental 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 63 

make-up than circumstances demanded. And I tell 
you, time has justified my faith in that old mother of 
mine. Many’s the fellow Fve got the better of because 
just at the critical moment I saw him with a woman’s 
eyes. Given a man, my son, and he’s never the worse 
for the woman in him. My poor old mother! Lord, 
how she struggled to get standing-room on earth for 
me. If she’d lived there wouldn’t have been anything 
too good for her under this canopy.” 

Christian pondered. This was a rare mood in which 
to discover the Chief, and the man who had made the 
prayer was clearly responsible for it. Evidently he was 
an artist in his line. 

“He’s a fine tall fellow,” continued Bronsart with a 
change of tone — “dark, and with an eye :hat’s got 
flames in it somewhere, and there’s that kind of style 
about his cut, if he is a. parson. Oh he’s a damned 
aristocrat with his lofty airs, but that’ll take with the 
women — and his smile! — Oh, it’s a cute smile — 
that’ll please them, too. 

Well, when the meeting was out I took him to lunch 
at the Imperial — he’s human — eats just like a sin¬ 
ner — drinks, too, but I hope that may escape general 
notice. Oh, he was interesting — he knows how to 
talk even to a fellow like me, but at the end of the hour 
I felt I hadn’t got anywhere with him, but that he 
knew all he wanted to about me. Oh, he’s going to be 
the rector of Ascension, but I believe in my bones I 
shall live to regret the day.” 

“Then why have him asked Christian in sur¬ 
prise. 


64 the work of our hands 

Bronsart snorted. ‘'Just because in the providence 
of human affairs it’s the nature of the wisest man to 
make a fool of himself once in so often, my boy. Fm 
it to-day. That’s why I offered him seven thousand. It 
seemed to me while we were discussing the situation 
at Ascension, that he was demanding something of 
me. I couldn’t make out what. I thought at last per¬ 
haps it was the money, and before I knew quite what 
I was doing, I said: ‘Of course for you we intend to 
make the salary seven thousand.’” 

“What did he say to that ?” 

“Say! He just looked at me — looked as if he 
wanted to scorch the hair off my head right through 
my face. I felt damned queer. You see you never can 
tell what a man’s fool enough to think he’s worth, but 
even a fool has his feelings, and I’ve never found that 
it paid to stick pins into them, let alone the quantity 
of honest sweat it takes to get a pin through a fool’s 
hide to begin with. Well, when he’d done his looking 
he said in that way of his: ‘It won’t take much to 
keep me, Mr. Bronsart.’ Now, just what did he mean 
by that, do you suppose ?” 

Christian shrugged his shoulders. 

“Just after that Wardrope came in. He was enthu¬ 
siastic — complimented Boothroyd, you know how 
— said he’d given the meeting the Gospel, the pure 
Gospel — you know that sort of slop talk. It seemed 
to sicken Boothroyd — he gave a kind of moan, and 
stood up suddenly, and said: ‘Oh, Christ! the Gos¬ 
pel! You want that ?’ Wardrope was quite disturbed. 
He’s been in here since — wanted to know if that was 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 65 

a prayer or a swear. I said: ‘Oh, Lord!’ and told him 
to get out.” 

“Well, it sounds problematic anyway,” remarked 
Christian. “There’s one thing, though. I hope he’ll 
stick to his text and leave the labour question alone. 
I hope you won’t find you’ve got a pulpit agitator on 
your hands.” 

“No, no!” exclaimed Bronsart. “I sounded him on 
that. Oh, he’s one of these mystical fellows that aren’t 
practical enough to get down to business.” 

“Well, if you’re sure,” said Christian doubtfully. 
“There was Braid, really getting his salary out of you, 
and never done with his little flings. It’s a cheap way 
to get popularity with the crowd, and that’s what 
most of the preachers are after these days — and their 
congregations, too. Any sort of song and dance goes 
as long as the parson gets a crowd. But incidentally, 
these men in the pulpit can make things hot for us. 
And this fellow — oh well, you say he’s safe. But it’s 
getting to be quite unfashionable to feel sure that any¬ 
thing you’ve got is your own.” 

“Well, I guess I know pretty well what’s mine,” 
said Christie Bronsart grimly. His thin jaw set a tense 
line about his face. 

Someone whistled outside. “It’s Vonviette.” Bron¬ 
sart locked his private desk, and the two men went 
out together. 

The girl smiled down upon them from her high seat 
in the cart. “ Climb in! ” she commanded. “ I came for 
you.” 

“What a delicate attention!” gibed her father. 


66 


THE WORK OR OUR HANDS 


“Ton my word, Von, I appreciate the privilege of 
driving through town with such a stunning looking 
girl as you are.’’ 

“It’s a mere matter of clothes,” she answered 
calmly. “I’ve been much depressed this afternoon by 
observing that almost any woman is better looking 
than I am, though it’s difficult to suspect it. There! 
see that girl on the curb — she drove slowly — 
“she’d be a raving beauty if she wore my clothes.” 

“Well, don’t worry about it.” 

“Oh, I’m not. It’s all a vain show. I’m part of it, 
willy-nilly. So is the girl. She’s the shadow and I’m 
the high - light — we’re both dependent on each 
other for effect in the picture. It’s very interesting. 
Because the effect would be ruined if one grew senti¬ 
mentally considerate of her feelings, and arrayed her 
like unto this proud bird.” 

“Child, how you do talk.” 

“Yes, don’t I ? And that is curious, for being the 
daughter of my mother, you would naturally expect me 
to be dumb — a nice example of the law of reaction. 
Now Maternal never seems to have got over her first 
surprise and delight at discovering that she was a toy 
that could talk. Her greatest mistake has been in tak¬ 
ing seriously what the toy said.” 

Father and son laughed. “Thank you. It’s agree¬ 
able to have one’s wit appreciated,” said Vonviette 
gravely. “Oh, by the way, I met a new man to-day. 
I’ve been looking about for some time for another 
world to conquer. It’s getting serious. Papa Bronsart. 
I’m twenty-three and without prospects. I’m fast ap- 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 6/ 

preaching that place where it will be as easy to rub 
the bloom of youth off me as if it were the commercial 
article. And you’re doing nothing whatever about it 

— you!” She gave her father a left-handed tap with 
her whip. “You act as if you positively don’t care 
whether I ever enter the married state or not, heed¬ 
less parent.” 

“I don’t,” said Bronsart lazily enjoying her. “It 
has always appeared to me though that you were 
doing all that was necessary yourself — working over¬ 
time, in fact. Don’t believe there’s a marriageable 
man within a hundred miles of this town that you 
haven’t pestered into proposing to you. The Lord 
knows it couldn’t have been because they wanted you 

— it always struck me that they figured it out as being 
the only possible way of getting quit of you. They 
knew that after you once found out that you could 
have them, you’d stop chasing them. It’s like the 
street-car a man can’t catch. He acts about it just as if 
it was the only car on earth on its last trip. And that’s 
the way with some women. They act as if any man 
was the last and only one, and it’s mighty flattering to 
the man and an awful shock to his nervous system 
when he discovers one fine day that the earth is round, 
and there are a few men on the under side.” 

“Hearken to the philosopher!” mused Vonviette. 
“Your remarks on women and men, my parent, be¬ 
tray an observation almost equal to my own. I had a 
delightful time at the reception at Mrs. Leach’s to¬ 
day — that accounts for the particular splendour of 
my rags, by the way. It occurred to me while I was 


68 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


exchanging lies with a lot of women that I would lay 
them out in lots — those that had souls, and those 
that hadn’t. You can’t imagine how exciting such a 
gathering becomes viewed from that standpoint. 
There was Aylmer — I disposed of her at once.” 
Vonviette turned to her brother on the back seat. 
‘‘You see, to-day she looked just like a soul abroad un¬ 
awares in flesh. And she had a beautiful gown on,too.” 

The men laughed again. ‘‘You mean that with such 
a gown, she should really have betrayed herself supe¬ 
rior to the possession of a mere soul,” observed 
Christian. 

“Precisely, my brother. I don’t know another wo¬ 
man who wouldn’t have. I wonder how she ever came 
to marry you, Christian. The Bronsarts are of the 
order Papilionaceae — she’s not. I looked at her to¬ 
day, and had the feeling I’ve often had about her — 
that she’s here just because she’s on the way some¬ 
where else; and most people — take Mrs. Leach” — 
the girl shrugged contemptuous shoulder — “she’s 
only fit for the life she leads here. She makes me think 
of a canary — strip off* its feathers, and you’d never 
get them on again — there’d be nothing there to stick 
them to — she’s all outside, just like the canary.” 

“What wisdom for twenty-three!” laughed Bron- 
sart. 

“ But those Forsythes” — she turned to her brother 
again — “they stand for something that we Papilion¬ 
aceae don’t know anything about. There’s Aylmer’s 
father — think of the majestic nature of his dissipa¬ 
tions I ” 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 69 

‘‘Dissipations!’’ echoed Christian. 

“Yes, dissipations. That’s what it really is of 
course. But don’t you think that a man who takes his 
spree out in prayer and Bible reading is after all on a 
higher plane than the one who takes it out in beer, 
though the impulse that drives one to prayer and the 
other to drink springs, no doubt, from precisely the 
same source.” 

Bronsart shouted. “I just wish Forsythe could hear 
you.” 

“Oh, I shouldn’t a bit mind saying that to him,” 
remarked Vonviette composedly. “I had a long talk 
with him the other day. In fact, I might as well tell 
you that we discussed this very point. I wanted to find 
out whether he had any breadth of mind at all. Well, 
he has. My, how he talked.” She broke oflF suddenly. 
“ Papa Bronsart, I wonder how you talk to stunning 
girls when you get off all by your lonesome — out 
from under my watchful eye.” 

“Oh, I’ve got little ways of my own, too — like 
every man, even Forsythe apparently, when there’s a 
woman in it.” 

“Yes, I’ll warrant you have. And after this I shall 
see to it that you are more rigidly chaperoned in the 
future than you have been in the past.” 

The moments when his daughter chaffed him were 
the happiest that came into Christie Bronsart’s 
starved life. It was the highest expression of tender¬ 
ness that he ever got from the creature that was dear¬ 
est to him. 

“Why, Papa Bronsart, I don’t believe you under- 


70 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

Stand Mr. Forsythe at all. He’s the most delirious 
combination of saint and sinner.” 

“Sinner!” echoed Bronsart. “Never!” 

“There it is! You see, it always takes a woman to 
understand a man. Men are blind idiots when it 
comes to comprehending the stuff they’re all made of. 
Why, there’s an absolutely frivolous streak in Mr. 
Forsythe. And yet he’d rather go to the stake than tell 
what he considered a lie.” 

“That’s so,” agreed Bronsart. “You see, Chris¬ 
tian, long ago — time of that old affair, he might have 
saved himself, I do believe, if he’d have bought off 
Ryerson. I couldn’t have done the trick without Ryer- 
son — at any rate not without no end of scheming — 
and Ryerson got frisky about standing by me — his 
conscience bothered him about that, but it wouldn’t 
have kicked at letting himself be bought off by For¬ 
sythe — he’d have got around that easily by per¬ 
suading himself that it was a most meritorious thing 
to save Forsythe from the clutch of the evil one, mean¬ 
ing me. But do you think Forsythe would ? He’d go to 
the wall instead. ’Twouldn’t have been according to 
his idea of honour. Honour! Gee! Where’d I be to-day 
if I had stopped at every corner to take that into 
consideration 

“There you are, Christie Bronsart,” said Vonvi- 
ette. “Of such are the morals of the Papilionaceae.” 

“I daresay, my fine daughter,” returned Bronsart 
unconcerned. “And if it wasn’t for those selfsame 
morals you wouldn’t be sitting up here in this cart 
with those high-priced rags on.” 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 7I 

‘‘ I wonder what difference that would really make 
to me. Of course it will shock you, but it has some¬ 
times occurred to me that there might be compensa¬ 
tions in poverty. The privilege of wanting something 
you couldn’t possibly have, for instance.” 

Her father laughed. ‘‘Well, I guess that privilege 
isn’t coming your way in any hurry,” he said ten¬ 
derly. 

But Christian took up the dropped thread. “That 
old affair” — he began tentatively — “Somehow I 
never have got the straight of that.” 

He spoke in spite of himself. For he had never 
wanted to know “the straight of it.” Nor did he now. 

“Why, Christian, it was just the simplest thing — 
and easier then than now, for fifteen — twenty years 
ago, men weren’t watching each other like hawks, the 
way they have to do now. It was like this: Forsythe 
had all the agricultural machinery business in this 
section. He’d begun small, and worked up a local 
business which kept extending. His stuff was well 
made — we couldn’t persuade the farmers that ours 
was better — of course it wasn’t — ’twasn’t as good. 
Forsythe had got the thing down to a fine art, but I 
hadn’t had time yet to do that — I was too busy get¬ 
ting in on things. But already I controlled so much 
capital — I had my agents all over, and was doing 
three times the business Forsythe did. But it galled me 
to think I couldn’t get the market on the spot. You see 
I had begun then buying up and driving out of bus¬ 
iness the small fry, but I’d never attacked anything as 
big as Forsythe. But the time came when I did. It 


72 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

wouldn’t work. The man didn’t want a competence 
and a quiet life. He wanted work, and I suppose every 
plough that went out of his factory stamped For¬ 
sythe, was a matter of pride to him. He just kept on 
sawing wood — extending his business every year, 
and building bigger shops. Well, it happened that he 
had borrowed a hundred thousand dollars from La- 
mont — in order to push things. Lamont was well 
pleased — the rate of interest was first-rate — that 
was all he wanted, and Forsythe paid off steadily 
every six months when the note became due. Of 
course, it ended in my buying up that note, and di¬ 
recting the bank to collect the amount. That was 
where Forsythe should have taken care of Ryerson’s 
conscience. The next time Forsythe went to the bank 
with his interest and ten thousand dollars for La¬ 
mont, the axe fell. It was the height of the manufac¬ 
turing season — Forsythe’s credit was strained to the 
limit, because he had realized that he had reached the 
place where he must take advantage of every oppor¬ 
tunity if he meant to hold his own. Well, my boy, we 
wiped him out. We didn’t give him time to think, and 
it seemed anyway as if he couldn’t. It was done so 
quick and so clean that he was mentally paralysed. 
His wife was so ill, too. Pshaw! I hate to think of that 
now. I didn’t know it at the time.” 

‘‘Oh, Papa Bronsart!” murmured Vonviette. 

“I know, my daughter, I know. But at the same 
time I’m very glad I didn’t hear about that until after¬ 
wards, for I can tell you it was no time to let senti¬ 
ment get monkeying with business. You see, Chris- 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 73 

dan, we had a writ issued and a liquidator appointed 
before Forsythe had time to turn round/’ 

‘‘But his business was absolutely solvent ?” 
“Solvent ? Well, I should say so. If it hadn’t been, 
we shouldn’t have been doing the worrying. But a 
man’s credit is the most ticklish thing there is. 
Twenty-four hours after we attacked him you 
couldn’t make a man believe his assets were worth 
talking about. It was the funniest thing you ever saw 

— worked out just the way I planned to beat the 
band. But it made me mad — to hear blame fools of 
business men talk about Forsythe and his failure. 
Forsythe never failed — he was simply driven out of 
business by a trick, and a damn mean one, too, if I do 
say it myself. But business is not business — it’s 
war. ” 

“Oh, Papa Bronsart, I think that was disgraceful 

— I feel ashamed.” 

“It was awful,” exclaimed Bronsart cheerfully.“It 
was enough to make a man curse God and die. And I 
guess Forsythe just about did die, but I’ll bet my hat” 

— he paused a moment — “say, it’s a strange delu¬ 
sion that can make a man take a blow between the 
eyes like that, and look up at the sky, and say: ‘Thank 
you, sir,’ as it were.” 

“Papa Bronsart, that’s where the human canaries 
and the butterflies show up as pretty poor specimens. 
I don’t think I like us very well to-day,” said Von- 
viette. 

“All the same, my girl, you wouldn’t like things any 
other way. I tell you from the day I beat out Forsythe, 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


74 

Fve never had a set-back. That was the turning-point. 
Everything big has come my way since, but Fve 
always pitied Forsythe. He was no fool, but Fve heard 
fools call him one. He had to get out of my way, that 
was all. But his wife! Gee! I hate to think of that. I 
guess she was just about as sweet a woman as ever 
lived — good deal like your mother, Christian. You 
see, I never even knew she was ill — first thing I 
heard — she was dead — dead, mind you, just when 
that man needed her most.’’ 

Christian muttered under his breath. 

‘‘Oh, it was bad. I just thrashed about for days, 
wondering what I could do. It ended in my offering 
Forsythe the travelling managership for the West. 
Oh, that was a great stroke for us, of course. He took 
it I suppose, because he was too bewildered to do any¬ 
thing else, and I guess he had to go to work or go 
mad.” 

“Well, here you are, Christian,” said Vonviette. 
“And there’s Aylmer looking for you at the window. 
I wonder how much she knows.” 

“Oh, nothing, nothing,” said Christian hurriedly. 
“She never must. You see, she’s a Forsythe.” 



CHAPTER SIX 


•• Tk dear Aylmer/’sighed Mrs. Bronsart/‘I 

I % /1 have just dropped in to have a quiet little 
▼ A talk with you. If you weren’t our dear 
Christian’s wife — well, of course then I shouldn’t be 
talking to you at all, should I.? — not that I mean by 
that — there! you see how sensitive I am — I’m 
always imagining that some one’s feelings are hurt — 
though why that should worry me — isn’t it too ab¬ 
surd Still, facts are facts, aren’t they, dearthough 
Mr. Bronsart never will see it.” 

Mrs. Bronsart threw olF her long lace coat, and sat 
down with a pensive air. “Yes, dear. I’ll take a cup of 
tea — very, very weak — my poor organization is so 
delicate, and I get so little sympathy — except from 
our dear, our beloved Mr. Boothroyd. He understands 
me — I feel it. My dear. I’m hardly conscious of the 
need of speech when I’m with him.” 

“How very interesting!” exclaimed Aylmer. 

“ Interesting ? Dearest Aylmer, you’re so literal, 
aren’t you It’s not at all interesting. It’s mysterious. 
And that’s what I appreciate so about our dear rector 
— he’s never literal, my dear. And that’s where every¬ 
body is making such a mistake about him. Now you 
75 


76 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

see, when I said to him yesterday that I intended to 
devote my life to the dear poor, he understood me at 
once. He said: ‘Mrs. Bronsart, of course you don’t 
mean that you are actually going in among those 
abandoned people — you mean that you will envelop 
them with your sympathy and your prayers.’ Beauti¬ 
ful idea, wasn’t it, my dear ? So delicate. And he said 
that he appreciated my self-sacrifice, but that he 
feared the poor would not — that his experience of 
them had been that they cared very little for prayers 
and sympathy. But I said to him: ‘Mr. Boothroyd, I 
know all about their ingratitude, but I shall not allow 
it to affect me. I shall love them. I will do it.’ It’s so 
sweet, isn’t it — the new thought 

Aylmer found the abruptness of this appeal some¬ 
what disconcerting. 

“Sweet ? Yes, almost cloying sometimes, don’t you 
think ?” 

“Oh, my dear, no! I see that you have not grasped 
its depth or you would never say that. I know all 
about it. You know I took that soul-culture course 
under Madame Delphidius — such a sweet woman, 
divorced from a gross, uncomprehending husband — 
and it was very intense. There were only four of us, 
you know — it was so very expensive — exclusive, I 
mean — and we all had to put on violet gowns when 
we got there, and the room was all violet, curtains, 
and walls, and woodwork and floors. I forget now just 
why, but there was a soul-reason of course, dear. I 
remember Madame told us about a man who tried 
living in an all red room to see if he would go mad. 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


77 

and he did — don’t ever do that, Aylmer, though I 
suppose the poor man was sensitive like me. But 
aren’t all these wonderful experiments in the interests 
of science too touching ? I’ve always thought I should 
like to die like that.” 

“You mean going mad in a red room Yes, that 
might serve the interests of the human race,” said 
Aylmer mildly. “ But there seem to be plenty of people 
able to accomplish the trick without a red environ¬ 
ment.” 

“There it is,” sighed Mrs. Bronsart. “So few peo¬ 
ple realize the hidden meanings of life — they never 
go below the surface. Dear Mr. Boothroyd feels that 
acutely. There’s Mr. Bronsart. He doesn’t grasp the 
depths of Mr. Boothroyd’s nature in the least. He said 
quite uncomfortable things about our dear clergyman 
at breakfast this morning. He called him a firebrand. 
I was quite hurt. I’m sure his sermon on Sunday was 
simply ideal. ‘All ye are brethren’ — isn’t it a pure 
thought ?” 

“But why did Mr. Bronsart call him a firebrand ? 
What did he mean by that Aylmer sat alert. 

“Oh, my dear, he didn’t mean anything. He merely 
likes to annoy me. And you would suppose, wouldn’t 
you, that he would be pleased to see me taking such a 
deep interest in religion, but he isn’t in the least. You 
know to my mind there’s something so charming in a 
woman’s being religious — French women under¬ 
stand that so much better than we do, but I think per¬ 
haps that’s something to do with their confessors, 
don’t you ? Though I don’t in the least see why.” 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


78 

Aylmer laughed suddenly. She was thinking of Mrs. 
Bronsart’s infatuation for this young, dark-eyed, 
deep-voiced dispenser of the gospel of brotherhood — 
she wondered how he enjoyed it. 

Just then Vonviette came in with Christian. “Now, 
Maternal, what are you here for, when you know you 
ought to be at home. There’s Papa Bronsart over 
there just stamping, and he wouldn’t let me ’phone to 
try and locate you. He said you were probably at the 
church attending some meeting for the Propagation of 
Bibs among Damned Heathen Babies. Oh, yes, I re¬ 
proved him, and then he told me that if I saw you 
hanging around anywhere with the parson, I was to 
tell you that he had instructed O’Brien to finish your 
room in magenta.” 

“Dear, dear! What an outrage! I shall really have 
to leave you at once, Aylmer.” And Mrs. Bronsart de¬ 
parted wearing an air of sculptured patience. 

Vonviette sighed. “Come, sister. I’m in need of a 
tonic. I’ve been overworking my grey matter trying to 
think out profound things to say to Father Booth- 
royd.” 

“Is that what you call him ?” 

“Why, naturally — for the best of reasons — I see 
how it irritates him. An aureole is a picturesque affair, 
but it gets dreadfully in the way of a man’s temper at 
times. Father Boothroyd is a young person of ideals, of 
course— he finds it interesting and effective to be such.” 

“Vonviette, don’t say that kind of thing.” Aylmer 
spoke sharply. “You don’t know anything about Mr. 
Boothroyd.” 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 79 

“No, sister,’’ rejoined Vonviette calmly. “But do 
you?” 

The colour flamed in Aylmer’s face. Mrs. Bron- 
sart’s sentimental excesses and Vonviette’s pose of 
airy detachment from any serious interest in life 
proved suddenly unbearable to her. 

“ I have good reason to suppose I do,” she retorted 
impetuously. 

Instantly, she felt Christian’s quick look upon her; 
she wished that she had not been betrayed into such a 
speech. 

And when his sister was gone, Christian said al¬ 
most immediately: “Aylmer, what do you mean when 
you say a thing like that about Boothroyd ?” 

“Oh, nothing, nothing,” she said wearily, lifting 
her hands above her head. “ But I get so tired of all 
this talk about him. Even old Mrs. Oliver said to me 
on Sunday morning in such a triumphant way: ‘This 
is what comes of preaching the Gospel in its simplic¬ 
ity, Mrs. Bronsart,’ quite as if I were an enemy of the 
Gospel. I just said: ‘Yes, Mrs. Oliver, but is this all ?’ 
And that’s it, Christian. Do you think for a mo¬ 
ment that a crowded church means anything to that 
kind of man — that that’s the success he is working 

for r 

“Well, it’s all he need worry about,” replied Chris¬ 
tian. “ He preaches great sermons — they are great, 
though I don’t know why — and he sticks to his text 
— he leaves the labour question alone, as he said he 
would, and that’s all we want of him.” 

“Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that his sermons 


8o THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

are great more by reason of what he implies, than of 
what he says ?” 

Aren’t you getting rather subtle, dear?” 

“ Probably I am. But do you think — can you 
think — that that man is going to place the final em¬ 
phasis upon the abstractness of the truths he is 
preachingnowwith such art that even people like Mrs. 
Oliver are conscious that something has got hold of 
them, though they don’t in the least understand 
what?” She looked towards the door — the maid 
ushered in a visitor. “Oh, Mr. Boothroyd, we were 
just talking about you.” 

The young man came forward quickly, his serious 
face breaking into “the damned cute smile” that 
Christie Bronsart had reckoned as one of his most 
valuable assets. 

“How delightful to find you both here,” he said as 
he shook hands. “To tell you the truth. I’m starved 
for the sight of a man. I’ve been calling on women all 
the afternoon — it’s debilitating.” 

“Well, then it’s too bad I can’t stay. But at any rate 
you will have spoken to a man. I have an engagement 
with my father at five — we’re to drive out and look 
over that ground at the east end — he’s thinking of it 
for the hospital site.” 

“Indeed,” said Boothroyd. 

Aylmer was instantly conscious o. an edge in the 
young man’s voice. Christian talked on, outlining 
Christie Bronsart’s plans; Aylmer watched the two 
men. There was this man — by profession, the saver 
of men’s souls — how much she knew about him, how 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


unsparingly she had analysed him. She was aware 
that there had grown up between them in the year 
that he had been in Weston an intimacy that would 
have amazed her husband — it amazed herself. She 
looked at Christian and felt tender contempt for the 
innocent self-absorption which denied him clearer 
vision of her nature — that he could be less than satis¬ 
fying to her on all sides had never entered his young, 
easy mind. Marriage had by now taught her perilously 
much; she knew that of the two, hers was the stronger 
nature, and she feared that knowledge. In a girl with 
a dangerously able mind, the unknowingness of 
youth had been displaced by experiences which she 
had analysed unsparingly, with a naively confident 
belief in her power to control the effect upon herself 
of such investigation. But of late she had at moments 
— doubted. 

“I have just come from Mrs. Arkelfs,” Boothroyd 
said to her after Christian had taken his departure, 
“She is suffering terribly to-day — it upset me com¬ 
pletely. In the ten minutes that I was there I won¬ 
dered how I dared say one word to her in the face of 
the crime of injustice that her life has been. To think 
of such years of torture just owing to a doctor’s indif¬ 
ference to a poor, common patient. ” 

“Oh, but she told me yesterday that her life had 
been all different since you came. She said you never 
went away without leaving her believing that some¬ 
how it was all joy to suffer as she does. ” 

“Did sheHis face shone for a moment — then 
clouded. “What else can one tell her If I could only 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


82 

be sure of it — as sure as I make her. Janie Neilson 
was there to-day. She followed me out and said to me: 
‘Then you believe there’s a God up there, do you? 
Well, you just give me the chance once to talk to Him, 
and I’ll undertake to tell Him a few things about His 
way of running a universe that’ll maybe jar Him a lit¬ 
tle.’ She was beside herself to-day. I suppose some¬ 
thing has gone wrong with her boy again — I must 
find out to-night.” 

‘T wish I could do something for her,” said Aylmer 
wistfully. “But she told me once that nothing good 
had ever come to her by right, and that she won’t have 
what doesn’t.” 

“I don’t blame her,” said Boothroyd curtly. “I 
don’t see why she should be further demeaned by ac¬ 
cepting what it would be no sacrifice to you to give. 
One has to earn the right to help one’s fellow. ” 

Aylmer coloured deeply; her lip quivered. “Then 
what did you mean by your sermon last Sunday?” 
she asked with the tremulousness of anger in her 
voice. 

“Did you think I meant that sort of thing — cheap 
charity like that ?” he demanded incisively. 

“No, I did’nt,” she flamed back at him. “I knew 
exactly what you meant. I always have — ever since 
you came. ” She stood up, her excitement suddenly too 
great for her to remain sitting. “You think no one 
knows about you. Well — I do. ” 

He looked at her coldly. 

“Two years ago —the dav I collected,” she added, 
in broken phrase. 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


83 


He stepped back and was still silent. 

“Why, did you — can you have believed that I — 
didn’t know ? Why, I always supposed you knew I 
knew.” She felt a biting disappointment. 

When at last he spoke, it was to say a thing she 
would never have expected from him. “Don’t you 
know that a man, if he knows anything, would always 
rather deal with a woman who can’t keep a secret 
than with one who can ? Do you know why ?” 

“What an odious thing to say!” 

“Don’t you know that I would rather that you 
would go out to-night and tell every one in Weston 
what you know — ” he hesitated, then added: “ It 
would be death to my plans, and yet — ” 

He was silent again. He was deeply perturbed. 
Suddenly, to discover his secret in the hands of a wo¬ 
man — and a woman who would never, never reveal 
it — the sense of obligation galled — humiliated. 

“What can it matter — that I know she asked, 
bewildered. 

“Oh, but it does — it does,” he answered impa¬ 
tiently. Then he looked at her. “I’m afraid I’ve been 
rude. I didn’t mean to be, of course. It’s my old fault, 
cropping out again — I can’t bear to have my plans 
interfered with — even by just thinking that some 
one else knows of them. But after all, it’s you” — he 
smiled at her — “why, how could I know you as I do, 
and not know that you knew. What an unpardonable 
dullard.” 

She smiled, too, though she found it difficult. Her 
knowledge of men was suffering enlargement. 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


84 

But presently she rallied, and ventured a question. 
“Tell me — why did you come here ? Why did you go 
into the shops ? And where did you go when you left 
here ? And what are you going to do now ? Oh, do you 
think I don’t know because I ask that ? You are going 
to make no end of trouble — for us. ” She drew 
away from him. 

“Am I He thought a moment. “Listen! You 
shall judge. You shall tell me what you think I ought 
to do. It’s like this. Two years ago the Bishop talked 
to me about the Church of the Ascension — about its 
deplorable condition — he wished me to take charge 
of it. I said. No; that I knew nothing about the condi¬ 
tions of life in this factory town — that I had no right 
to preach the laws of living to people unless I knew 
their difficulties—their temptations. We discussed the 
situation exhaustively — at last I came here. I found 
work. For six months I operated a little machine in the 
Bronsart shops — for six months I made the same 
stroke with my right hand thousands of times a day. 
At the end of the first week I thought I should go mad. 
At the end of a month I knew just how a man feels 
when he becomes mere brute force, automatic, unend¬ 
ing, forever grinding. H no longer thought about any¬ 
thing. I did my day’s work — ate my supper, and 
went to bed to sleep like a dead man. The memory of 
it is a hideous nightmare to me. And it must be re¬ 
membered that I was not working as the men about 
me were. For me, there was deliverance ahead — for 
them it was a life sentence. Then one day, you came 
into the shops — ” he paused, looked at her steadily, 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 85 

and went on — “God! how terrible it seemed to me 

— to see you radiant, smiling, gracefully conde¬ 
scending, full of the charm and beauty of cherished 
womanhood — a joy to look at, to be near for a mo¬ 
ment — why, those rough men felt it just as I did — 
the allurement of silks and laces, of faint perfume — I 
never forget it — I can shut my eyes and call it all 
back — the thick hot smell of the grit and the grime 
of the factory, the maddening thud of the machines, 
and myself, sweating, sick of soul and of body — 
wondering, always wondering what was it all about 

— what was the answer to the mighty human prob¬ 
lem. And then, a sudden breath, a sweetness as of rain 
upon the grass — the touch of Monteith upon my 
arm — a silken stir, a soft voice — and you! You 
can’t understand what that was to me — you be¬ 
longed to my class — for a moment I longed to drop 
my work and walk away with you into the life of ease 
and decency I belonged to. But I did not think that 
long. For I looked at you and it came over me what a 
crime you were.” 

“A crime!” echoed Aylmer. Her veins flushed hot 

— this man went far. 

“Yes, a crime. There you were, backed since you 
were born by all that money could do to enhance your 
charm as a woman, tricking the money out of the 
pockets of men who had helped furnish you with your 
dainty raiment, but who had never known a man’s 
satisfaction in seeing their wives or daughters arrayed 
as you were.” 

“Please go on,” said Aylmer. “This time I want to 


86 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

hear the very worst you can say to me. If any one 
thinks me a criminal I need to understand why.’’ 

“You are not a coward, at any rate,” remarked 
Boothroyd. “I knew that, that day in the shops.” 

“Oh, but I am — I have never been happy since 
that time — not what I call happy. I have never been 
sure since — there has always been a question in the 
background. And I have done my best to dodge it.” 

“We all do — it is not to be expected that you 
should not. The only question that matters, is, how 
long will you dodge it. When do you mean to face it ? 
Life is not long — it passes.” He waited for her to 
speak. 

But sudden revolt flamed in Aylmer’s eyes. “Why 
should I \ Do you know what it would mean ? What 
do you want of meWould you suggest that I run 
away and try the experience of being a factory girl 
She laughed ironically. 

“It wouldn’t be a bad idea,” he replied calmly. 
“Yes, I think it would be worth while. At least you 
would have the satisfaction of knowing afterwards 
that for once in your life you had been a worker — 
not a drone in the hive.” 

Aylmer smiled. “You really don’t put any value — 
do you ? —on such a little thing as civilization for in¬ 
stance. You, of course, contend that we might better 
all be on the level — even as savages — than as we 
are. It counts for nothing to you, that behind me 
scores of my people — they whose blood flows now in 
my veins — struggled and ached that they might 
evolve a higher type, just as some of these poor fac- 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 87 

tory people are struggling now. What right have you 
to deny to this blood*’—she held out her wrist, 
touched with delicate finger a blue, throbbing vein — 
“to deny to it that which it won ?” 

“What a lie!” But he spoke quietly. “What right 
to ease, luxury, frivolity, did any stern forebear of 
yours struggle forHe despised all that, as the noblest 
in humanity has always despised it. And it is the most 
terrible travesty upon human endeavour that such as 
you should have his blood in your veins. Ay, you have 
his blood, but you have lost his spirit. Elsewhere, it 
marches on without you.” A deep flush spread sud¬ 
denly over his dark young face — he struck the deli¬ 
cate Sheraton table beside him with avenging hand. 
“ I tell you, it is such as you who are the true dregs of 
humanity.” 

Aylmer rose. “Mr. Boothroyd — ” 

“Sit down!” He spoke with authority. Then his 
tone softened. “It wasn’t fair to talk to you like that 
— was it ? But I want you to see that side — to think 
about it. You s^all think about it. Your opportunities 
are so great. Time and time again, I have looked 
down upon you in church and thought: ‘If the vision 
might but come to her!”’ He hesitated, then added: 
“Do you think I don’t realize ? Do you think I don’t 
know the meaning of the way I ask you to take ? But 
think of your husband. Think what it would mean if 
through you the vision came to him. Some day he will 
be the head of that business. Youth will have passed. 
His character will be irrevocably set. Shall it be in the 
direction of righteousness — or shall it be in the di- 


88 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

rection of greed, of sordid self-interest, of calculated 
selfishness ? And it is for you to ask yourself — not, 
how can I reform the existing economic system ? — 
but, shall I have this?” — his hand swept descrip¬ 
tively the beautiful room — ‘‘and this” — he touched 
her silken gown — “ shall I weary my body with ease 
— shall I deck it with the cost of souls — while down 
there in Pearl Street a woman lies dying with her 
starved babe at her breast — while over there in Lo¬ 
comotive Street girls go to hell because they cannot 
live on their wretched weekly wage — the very girls 
who wait on you in the stores — and must sell what 
always commands its awful price. While children, 
too, fresh from the heart of God, are thrown out upon 
the dung-heap to rot. In the face of facts like these, 
can you — dare you sit at peace, and silence the still 
small voice in your soul with pat theories about the 
laws of the distribution of wealth, of ease, of oppor¬ 
tunity ? Dare you leave the cripple, broken of heart, 
and of body, behind you in the great race ?” 

He was silent — it seemed almost as if he had for¬ 
gotten her. In a moment he added, in a depth of tone 
that hardly reached her: “My God, no! May I reach 
the foot of the Cross, with Thy helpless little one in 
my arms.” 

The golden sunset streamed into the room through 
the costly lace hangings, touching with its living 
sheen the misty greens and greys of a wonderful Co¬ 
rot. An Israels stood out suddenly from a dark corner, 
revealing its marvellous story of human helplessness 
and grief— in the alcove a reproduction of the great 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 89 

Venus from a famous French chisel, posed in magnifi¬ 
cent superiority to mere human weal or woe. 

And the girl sitting there motionless amid the lux¬ 
ury seemed, in her elegance, her proud grace, an inte¬ 
gral, inseparable part of it all. What kin was she to 
that fag-end of humanity which gasped out its mis¬ 
erable life on Pearl Street, better dead than alive, or 
went to hell on Locomotive Street — where doubtless 
it belonged f 

Boothroyd stood up. “Do you know ‘The Cry of 
the Age he asked. 

Aylmer shook her head. 

“Then listen — 

‘What shall I do to be just ? 

What shall I do for the gain 
Of the world — for its sadness ? 

Teach me, O seers that I trust! 

Chart me the difficult main 

Leading out of my sorrow and sadness 
Preach me the purging of pain. 

Shall I wrench from my finger the ring 
To cast to the tramp at the door ? 

Shall I tear off each luminous thing 
To drop in the palm of the poor ? 

What shall I do to be just 
Teach me, O Ye in the light. 

Whom the poor and the rich alike trust: 

My heart is aflame to be right.’** 


CHAPTER SEVEN 


A S Aylmer came in from her morning walk, a 
man accosted her at the gate. 

‘‘I want work,’’ he remarked. 

She stared at him. “Well, can’t you get it ?” 

“No, I can’t. I’ve tried all over, ma’am.” 

“Have you been to the shops — the Bronsart 
Shops.?” 

He made a gesture of despair. “They won’t have 
me. I ain’t much good. I’m about wore out. I’ve been 
at work fifty years. But I want work.” 

“Well, come in, and let cook give you a good meal,” 
said Aylmer, desiring to be kind to this unfortunate. 

The man looked at her steadily. “ I ain’t never eat a 
begged meal yet, lady. I want work.” 

“But what can I do?” exclaimed Aylmer, help¬ 
lessly. “You see the work about this place is all pro¬ 
vided for.” In the distance she saw Hillman, indus¬ 
triously raking the lawn, but keeping distrustful 
eye upon the intruder — prepared to drive him 
hence. 

“I expect it is, ma’am. But I want work.” 

The insistent phrase irritated; Aylmer coloured. 
No doubt he did want work, but was she to be tor- 


90 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 9I 

merited by his need ? Yet, after all — Oh, she would 
write a note to Monteith. 

‘‘Just wait,’’ she said graciously. “I will be out 
again in a moment.” 

She went into the house and sat down before her 
writing-table. What had she better say ? Would Mon¬ 
teith really give him work ? 

She laid down her pen. No, he would not. She knew 
it; she had been seeking a way to escape — that was 
all. Monteith would toss this bit of human garbage 
back on the dust-heap — and she ? — well, the re¬ 
sponsibility for that would be Monteith’s. 

Would it ? What a coward she was! 

She went back to the man. “It won’t do,” she said 
falteringly, “what I thought of. I really don’t know 
what to do for you.” She held her pocket-book ob¬ 
trusively in her hand. “If you would only let me — it 
might tide you over, you see. You might find work by 
the time — this — this — ” she fluttered a bill be¬ 
tween her fingers. 

“ Lady, I ain’t begging. I want work,” repeated the 
man — calm as before. But it was the calmness of 
vehement insistence. 

“I’m dreadfully afraid you must go away. I’m very 
sorry. If you’d only take this, you know — ” 

What had she, a woman, to do with the mighty 
“want work” question That was clearly a matter 
for the men. 

The man turned, and went down the walk. His step 
dragged — his fingers trembled on the latch of the 
gate. 


92 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

He looked back; the lady stood still on the steps. She 
was beautiful, rich, untroubled by care. Why ? She 
had never known cold, hunger, cruel fear of the mor¬ 
row. Why ? When he had never known anything else. 
He shut the gate behind him, and standing outside, 
looked back again. The green lawn stretched smooth 
and restful out of sight — the drift of apple-blossoms 
whitened the scented wind — great beds of scarlet 
tulips flamed in front of the fine house within which 
luxury dwelt and waxed fat. The lady had gone in — 
had already banished his miseries from her remem¬ 
brance. 

Despair settled cold upon his heart. He was no 
good. He belonged nowhere. The birds, the trees, the 
tiniest blade of grass — all had appointed place — 
only he, hot human flesh and blood, had none. 

“Wait a moment.” 

He turned heavily. 

“Oh, come back, Fm sorry.” It was Aylmer. She 
stood beside him, so fair in her white gown — 
flushed, embarrassed. 

“You must come back. It wasn’t right. I must find 
work for you.” 

He followed dumbly. Once inside the gate again, 
she said to him shyly: “I thought of something. I 
had to, so quickly. Are you fond of flowers ?” 

“No, ma’am.” 

She smiled suddenly — her face was very sweet. It 
was such a hopeless bit of humanity. 

“But you will have to be.” 

“Yes, ma’am.” 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


93 

“Now, I will tell you. I haven’t any work for you. 
So I must make some. My husband owns a lot on 
Mary Street — it’s in a terrible condition. I go to see 
a poor sick woman down there who has been in bed 
for months. And all that she can see from her window 
is this dirty unkept lot. Would you like to try if we 
could make it beautiful for her.?” 

“Yes, ma’am.” But there was no enthusiasm in the 
tone. 

Aylmer sighed. Then she remembered that the man 
was broken-spirited, hungry. What right had she to 
demand enthusiasm of him ? And what reason had he 
for belief in her — in her intention to do good to him .? 
She opened her pocket-book again, and gave him the 
bill he had refused. “Go downtown and buy a 
spade,” she said, “and get your dinner. Come back to 
me at three o’clock — not before — and we will go 
over to Mary Street together, and see how to begin.” 

During luncheon she could have laughed aloud at 
herself. How amused Christian would be if she told 
him the story! 

But at three o’clock John Stroud was waiting for 
her. He handed her some change. “ I got the spade for 
twenty cents — second-hand,” he explained with 
pride. “It’s a good spade.” 

“That’s right,” she said appreciatively. 

It was indeed a hopeless looking bit of ground — a 
desolation of refuse heaps. Aylmer’s heart failed her. 
Then she looked towards Mrs. Arkell’s little window. 
Oh, if only this could be turned into a beauty spot for 
her poor eyes. 


94 the work of our hands 

She consulted long and earnestly with John Stroud. 
He seemed not without wisdom as to the disposition 
of the cast-off clothing and domestic utensils which 
constituted the sole furniture of the property at pres¬ 
ent, though at moments, his manner implied a re¬ 
serve of doubt as to the sanity of the lady who desired 
to transform such a spot in such a neighbourhood into 
a flower garden. As Aylmer, however, was a strong 
sharer of his suspicions their general feeling was one 
of amity. When they had planned the immediate 
work, she ran in to see Mrs. Arkell, and somewhat 
timidly unfolded her idea. “ I don’t want you to think 
I’m crazy.” 

Mrs. Arkell’s eyes shone, “A flower garden here — 
outside my window!” 

“Yes, but suppose it’s a failure. Suppose nothing 
grows. I don’t know anything about it, and neither 
does John Stroud.” 

“Ah, but it won’t be.” Mrs. Arkell had learnt the 
necessity of cultivating the optimistic spirit. “Just 
think of all you’ll learn. Tim will help. He doesn’t 
know a thing either.” 

They laughed gaily. 

Some weeks later Christian said suddenly one eve¬ 
ning. “So I understand my wife intends to run a hor¬ 
ticultural show down on Mary Street.” 

Aylmer crimsoned. “Oh, Christian, I didn’t want 
you to know anything about that.” 

“So it appears.” 

“But you don’t mind ? The man wanted work.” 

“Why didn’t you come to me about that 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 95 

‘‘Dear, how could that have done any good ? You 
would have given him work just to satisfy me, but in 
no time he would have been dropped/’ 

“Well ? Lots of men are dropped. You don’t know 
anything about it, and it doesn’t worry you.” 

“Yes, but this man came to me. The problem be¬ 
came mine, the moment he did that.” 

Christian smoked a while in silence. Then he said: 
“You’ve had a lot of carting done there. If you had 
spoken to me I could have got it done much cheaper.” 

“Of course you could. But I wanted to learn how to 
do that myself. I am not trying to save either money 
or myself. Who told you what I was doing ?” 

“I drove by, and wondered who was trespassing on 
my property. Your man told me it was my wife.” 

“It was pretty audacious of me, wasn’t it.?” Ayl¬ 
mer perched herself on the arm of her husband’s 
chair. “But you can’t think what a joy it has been to 
feel I was really doing something — creating some¬ 
thing.” She looked wistfully at Christian. “You don’t 
like me to do that ?” she asked, conscious of a certain 
detachment in his manner. 

“Oh, I don’t know. Do what you like, dear.” 

Aylmer slipped off the chair. Oh, if he would not be 
interested — if he would not understand — Well, so 
be it! 

“Have you seen Boothroyd lately?” asked Chris¬ 
tian after a long pause. 

“No, I think 

“Well, he’s here now,” said Vonviette, entering 
with the rector unannounced. “And you’re welcome 


96 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

to him. I flew in here to escape him, but he followed 
me. I warn you that he’s in an impossible mood.” 

“Probably that’s true,” said Boothroyd, as he 
shook hands. “I’m exhausted,” he added looking at 
Aylmer. “ I want help — I want sympathy. I wonder 
if I may tell you a story — it’s a terrible story.” 

“Must we hear itasked Christian. 

The complacent sarcasm in the question stung 
Boothroyd. He flung back his head. 

“Yes, I think you must.” But he faltered. 

“Let me get you something,” said Alymer. His ex¬ 
haustion was evident^ 

“No, no! If I may only talk to you. You see, soon 
after I was located here, two country people came to 
see me about cheir daughter — a type-writer in this 
city. They were simple, godly folk who wished me to 
have an eye to her spiritual welfare. Not that they had 
any real fears for her — they were too trusting, too 
unimaginative tor that. I hunted the girl up, and 
found her singularly charming. It seemed as if a lily 
had sprung from a cabbage-stalk. I inquired about 
her, and found that she did her work admirably — 
she was very quick and reliable. I watched her with a 
good deal of interest and pleasure, because I knew the 
difficulties and temptations that might assault such a 
girl. Once, soon after she came she had some trouble 
from undesirable attentions, but I was told that she 
acted with dignity. Well, some months ago the head 
of her department came to see me. He wanted my 
help. He had discovered — the knowledge rather had 
been forced upon him, that the girl had become seri- 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


97 

ously entangled with a young man. It appeared that 
this condition of things had been going on for nearly 
two years. She admitted it frankly — indeed she as¬ 
sumed to him an air of bravado — said she had noth¬ 
ing to be ashamed of. He was quite unable to deal 
with her, and so I went over finally with him to see 
her. The moment I touched the subject, she flew at 
me like a tigress — this tender, sweet-hearted girl. 
She asked me what right I had to interfere in her 
affairs ? I told her that I had the inalienable right of 
one soul to prevent by any means in its power the de¬ 
struction of another. Poor little girl! After a while the 
tears came — she told me everything with such terri¬ 
ble unreserve.” 

‘‘Vonviette, don’t you think it would be well for you 
to run home now.^” There was a biting quality in 
Christian’s voice; his meaning was clear. 

“Not at all, my brother,” answered the girl briskly. 
“This story has prospects — it appeals to me. I am 
not sure that it’s at all fit for you, but a reasonable 
proportion of soot has never disconcerted me.” 

“Vonviette!” exclaimed Aylmer sharply. 

“Oh, my dear, don’t!” There was sudden weari¬ 
ness in the girl’s manner. “Does anything that I say 
ever mean anything” 

Boothroyd turned towards Aylmer. “I was saying 
to you,” he continued quietly, “that she told me 
everything. The child seemed so blinded by her in¬ 
fatuation that she had lost all sense of what to conceal. 
She said to me repeatedly in such amazement: ‘But 
Tm not bad.’” 


98 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

Christian took up a book lying at his elbow. ‘‘I 
shan’t disturb you if I read ?” he asked his wife with 
an elaborate effect of politeness. He was aware that 
he was acting like a fool, but he had an indefinite im¬ 
pression that by so acting he might jar Aylmer to a 
consciousness of the impropriety of her interest in 
any one belonging to the class into which this girl had 
fallen. It was intolerable to him that his wife should 
show this determined disposition to philanthropic 
dabbling in things forbidden. 

“Oh, of course, read if you like, dear,” said Ayl¬ 
mer coldly, without looking towards him. Why was he 
so determined to set his face against any deeper inter¬ 
est in life for her 

“But who was the manshe asked Boothroyd. 

“A fellow connected with one of the banks here in 
town. He has a fine position — he will rise. We saw 
him — oh, we have seen him many times. But he has 
always had the best of us. He said quite coolly that he 
loved the girl, but that he did not wish to marry her — 
he saw no reason why he should — that until we came 
around with our damned interference in his affairs, 
they were both quite happy. I put it to him that we 
could undoubtedly secure his dismissal from the 
bank. He said: ‘Oh, yes, and just what good would 
that do ?’ Certainly — we could quickly ruin his repu¬ 
tation— his business career — ‘and what will you 
have gained, Mr. Boothroyd .? You will make it easier 
for me to go to the devil all round, that’s all. Instead 
of being a respectable citizen twenty years from now, 
you will have one more wreck to your credit.’ When I 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 99 

asked him if he had no sense of moral responsibility 
towards the girl, he said: ‘None of the sort that we 
prided ourselves on — that we were doing more to in¬ 
jure her reputation and his own respect for her than 
all that he had done ever could/ He continually said: 
‘She loves me, and has had more happiness in that 
than she has had before in all her life. Is that worth 
nothing ?* 

He insisted that he would probably not love her 
nearly as much if she were his wife — he considered 
marriage in nine cases out of ten a most immoral 
bond.’’ 

“ What an interesting young man! ” exclaimed Von- 
viette. “ I wish I knew some of that sort.” 

Boothroyd threw her a curious look. 

“ He said that when he and the girl no longer loved 
each other, they would part, with respect for them¬ 
selves and their liberties. And the mere fact that they 
were free to do that tended, in his humble opinion, to 
the happy continuance of their relations.” 

“Horrible!” said Aylmer. “And you have not suc¬ 
ceeded in accomplishing anything 

“No,” Boothroyd sighed. “To-night I know that 
we have not. You see, about two months ago I went to 
the girl and said: ‘Now, it has come to this — unless 
you will go home at once, back to your parents and 
break this all off, I will go out to them, and tell them 
exactly what is going on here.’ ‘I will not go back to 
them,’ she told me. ‘I cannot live away from the sight 
of him. But if you go and tell them I will shoot myself 
— I will go home to them dead.’ I said: ‘Yes, I had 


100 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

taken that into consideration — that I believed she 
would do as she said, and that I was willing she 
should shoot herself— 

A sharp exclamation escaped Aylmer — Vonviette 
laughed lightly. 

—that such an ending was preferable in every 
way to the life she was leading, and would probably 
mean less — far less of grief to her parents in the long 
run.’ ” He appealed to Aylmer: “You know the lines, 
don’t you ? — 

** ‘Yours was not an ill for mending, 

*Twas best to take it to the grave. 

Oh you had forethought, you could reason, 

And saw your road and where it led. 

And early wise and brave in season — * ** 

— he paused, and then added: 

“ ‘Oh soon, and better so than later 
After long disgrace and scorn — * ’* 

There was silence for a moment — then Vonviette 
said lightly: “You have some unusual points of view. 
Father Boothroyd. You seem to seek escape for the 
sinner from the consequences of his actions at any 
cost.” 

“I do,” he answered simply. “To-night I would 
give all that I have to see that girl freed forever from 
the terrible consequences that await her. I would pre¬ 
fer to see her return her broken life to the heart of 
God, because — 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS lOI 

** * Thou alone 

Keepest judgment for Thine own; 

Only unto Thee is known 
What to pity, what to blame; 

How the fierce temptation came, 

What is honour, what is shame.* 

You see, this poor child cannot perceive why this is 
sin. I remember once in wishing to stir her, I asked 
her whether she had ever considered the harm she was 
doing to the man she loved in lessening his ideals such 
as they were — in injuring the faith that every man, 
however base, has in some woman. That led to a terri¬ 
ble outburst. She could not see how the love which 
had led her to supreme sacrifice for him, could have 
such result. So often she has argued with me that the 
love which asked nothing — which gave just because 
it was love — was far above that which demanded 
name, and protection, and legal status.” 

“ But do you think she really believes all she says to 
you?” asked Aylmer. “Don’t you think that in her 
heart she knows it is — sin ?” 

“Ah, that is it. You see. He never leaves Himself 
without a witness. Poor child!” Boothroyd sighed 
heavily. “Oh, we brought her at last to the point 
where she agreed to insist with him upon marriage. 
We nailed it right down until he was to come to her 
one evening for the express purpose of concluding all 
arrangements. There is much that I cannot tell you, 
but he promised us this. Well, that night she waited, 
and waited. It was so unusual for him not to come, 
that she grew more and more desperate. At last, near 


102 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

midnight, she could bear it no more. She went out to 
his home — it’s a beautiful place — and she sat there 
on the steps until he came. The shock of finding her 
there seemed to stir something in him — he was over¬ 
come — he probably loved her as nearly that night as 
he will ever love any woman. I asked her how she 
could have done that — what would have happened if 
his parents or his sister had seen her there. She said 
she did not care that night — that she might have told 
them everything.” 

“Then she was at last convinced that he ought to 
marry her r* asked Aylmer. 

“Oh, of course. But you see, after that he fell back 
again. She agreed to go home, and he said he would go 
out there to see her, and court her in a natural way, 
and marry her after a while. He argued that it would 
injure him to accede to any hurry-up proposition — 
he simply wasn’t going to. It was all we could do. She 
went home and we hoped for the best. But yesterday 
I met her in town — with him. To-day I have made 
inquiries — she is in another office. Everything is 
again as it was two months ago, only now she realizes 
she is going to hell. I hunted her up to-night.” 

“What office was she in beforeasked Aylmer. 

Boothroyd hesitated — looked at Christian who 
had sat so silent — then turned back to Aylmer. “In 
the Bronsart office,” he answered. 

“What — in our office!” Aylmer leaned over and 
laid her hand impulsively on her sister-in-law’s shoul¬ 
der. “Oh, Vonviette, think of it — she was there — 
in our office — and we never knew or cared.” 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


103 

“She knew you, Mrs. Bronsart,” said Boothroyd. 
“You always spoke to her as you passed in. Once 
when I was fighting with her, she said: ‘Don't you 
ever tell Mrs. Bronsart about me.' You see in the very 
midst of it she cared for your opinion." 

The tears sprang to Aylmer's eyes. “ But surely — 
tell me — you don't mean that it was that little Miss 
Latimer ?" 

Boothroyd nodded. 

‘‘And to think that you—that you—have known all 
this, and I have known nothing. Oh, isn't there any¬ 
thing I can do now ? Wouldn't she let me see her 

Christian rose and went over to his wife. “Aylmer, 
I don't want you to do that kind of thing," he said 
gently, but very deliberately. “I agree with you that 
this is a pathetic case. There always have been such 
— there always will be. You cannot alter the facts of 
human nature. There is just so much pitch in the 
world — it's here; you may displace it, but you can¬ 
not annihilate it. I do not wish my wife to touch it. I 
think we can safely leave that to our clergymen." 

Boothroyd straightened — a flash of red passed 
over his dark young face. 

“I will consult with Warley" — Christian looked 
towards Boothroyd — “of course he is the head of 
the department to whom you referred — he is an ex¬ 
cellent man" — the tone of patronage was doubtless 
unconscious — “and we will see what can be done. 
Perhaps I can bring some pressure to bear on the 
young man in question. You would not object, per¬ 
haps, to letting me know who he is ?" 


104 the work of our hands 

Boothroyd’s eyes flashed. ‘‘Your sister will,” he 
answered without looking at Vonviette. “She spent 
last Sunday afternoon driving with him.” 

Vonviette laughed. “You mean Mr. Kent, do 
you ?” Her colour rose. “Ah, that puts such a diflFer- 
ent face on the matter. No, he will never marry your 
young person. And to tell you the truth as I perceive 
it, I should think it a pity if he did — for him, I 
mean.” A passionate desire tormented her to leave 
nothing wilful unsaid to this man of irritating ideals. 

Boothroyd looked down at her — little, elegant 
trifle of humanity that she was, and ached to shake 
her soul loose from her frills. 

And Aylmer watched them — she never forgot the 
impressions they left upon her just then — the young 
cleric, his tall slight figure drawn tense, his dark head 
with its curious brilliance of lighting in the eyes; 
his face so austere in judgment of the girl before 
him — and she, dainty as a French pastel; her face 
a child’s for colour and innocence of curve, but 
with those cool blue eyes which had seen much and 
mocked at most things — yet a girl delicate still of 
mind, though of lip a cynic — without understanding 
why; a girl trailed for years over the continent at the 
heels of a mother whose frivolity was a byword — a 
girl who had seen much of the worst of some notably 
evil men and women, and thus had come, pathetically 
soon, to distrust — or so she supposed — all others. 
Even now, her soft lip curled. The boy before her — 
what knew he, with his piously guarded emotions, of 
that fury in the blood, which drove men and women 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS IO5 

to hell ? He thought the case of this girl tragic — ex¬ 
ceptional. Bah! the disease from which she suffered 
was commonplace in its frequency. 

So she looked at him, and her blue eyes mocked. 

“You take things seriously, Father Boothroyd. 
Well, I appreciate that. You get so much more out of 
life that way. The girl you have been speaking of does 
the same thing. Suppose some man had fallen in love 
with her, as they call it, and she had married him in 
the usual very uninteresting way, and settled down to 
keep house in decency and humdrum morality. In a 
short time her mind would not have risen above such 
problems as the innate toughness of cheap steak, and 
the size of the weekly wash. Why, if you please — tell 
me, I honestly want to know — is that better for a 
woman’s soul than knowing that she has experienced 
to the limit every emotion of which she was capable — 
that she has suffered all she could suffer — that the 
maddest joys have been hers — the heights of hope, 
the depths of despair ? Why, because she has used all 
of herself that there is to use, should you get after her 
with your beggarly little foot-rule, and say: ‘Oh, but 
you mustn’t measure more than this, this way, or that, 
that way ^ It’s not legal.’ Don’t you know that all the 
women in history whose lives we care a fig about and 
whose pictures we love to look at in the galleries, have 
been just like this girl ? But we’re all so afraid — and 
yet it’s so deathly stupid having to pretend that all 
we’ve got is the emotions of angels — there’s so little 
in it — but it’s only fear of the opinion of all the other 
angels that keeps us what you call good. But I say. 


I06 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

Father Boothroyd” — she snapped her fingers dain¬ 
tily — “let the girl go to the devil — she’ll have lived 
at least.” 

No one spoke until Christian, rising, said with 
chill politeness, “I shall be glad to see you home, 
Vonviette.” 

Boothroyd left the house with them. But at the door 
Aylmer said to him: “Yes, but you don’t believe that f 
— you don’t think that that poor child should take 
her own life ?” 

His eyes burnt upon her. “Should I be holding my 
pulpit if I did ? And yet, perhaps, for her — Oh, un¬ 
less some woman who has loved and who understands 
the terrible complexity of love — ” he left her, with 
his unvoiced question tearing her heart. 

And in the days which followed she grew afraid of 
herself. For there came to her again and again, a ques¬ 
tion often denied, often evaded — what right had 
Christian to assign her judgment second place f — 
v/hat right had he to proscribe, to dictate, to expect of 
her entire subordination to his interests, to his opin¬ 
ions, to his prejudices ? Did the right inhere in the 
simple fact that he was a man, and she a woman } It 
seemed so; there were times when her blood burned 
hot over that answer. 

It came to her suddenly one day with an acute 
sense of shock that she was no longer a wife just 
happy in the discovery of her power to please, to 
charm, to allure the heart of man. She had been con¬ 
tent for a long time to bask radiant in the sun of her 
young god’s smiles. But he was not a god — he was 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS IO 7 

mere flesh and blood like herself. And did flesh and 
blood under the microscope reveal why one should 
enforce, the other submit ? 

She thought of the women she knew — all more or 
less subject to a master. Why I — because of their 
lack of experience, of business knowledge, as so often 
argued by men ? No, for except in some few striking 
instances men sought eagerly the advice of their 
wives upon the most serious questions, frankly con¬ 
ceding technical inexperience to be no bar to admir¬ 
able judgment. It seemed that it was only when it 
came to matters which concerned herself that the 
man assumed the role of master. Then he put his 
foot down — president and pauper alike. 

Clearly, the attitude was a left-over from savagery. 
From the beginning woman had been physically 
handicapped — in bondage to the perpetuation of the 
species, while man had had ever his personal bodily 
freedom. He might be conscious at times of her men¬ 
tal equality with him — he was always conscious of 
her physical limitation, and of the immense advantage 
which this gave him. 

At bottom then — so she reasoned — it became 
simply a question of which was the better equipped 
from the brute point of view. The one that was, had 
dominated. It was surely not a noble basis upon 
which to erect a claim to superiority, and as she ana¬ 
lysed deeper and deeper, she felt that man’s every act 
of courtesy to woman was a subtle form of apology to 
her. 

But why must she torment herself with these ques- 


I08 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

tions — why dissect the causes of her husband’s ten¬ 
derness with so unsparing a scalpel ? Why could she 
not accept her life as myriads of women did — have 
happiness bought for her with trinket and toy ? Ah, 
that would never be! The inheritance of stern strug¬ 
gling blood was indeed hers, in spite of all that Amyx 
Boothroyd had said, and it was to urge her, whither 
she as yet knew not. 

It had sent her down the street with John Stroud 
and his second-hand spade; it called upon her now to 
save a girl’s broken life from destruction. But what to 
do — what to do.? For she perceived clearly that 
Christian’s attitude was apt to become uncompro¬ 
mising in regard to some matters about which she 
already feared the development of her own convic¬ 
tions. 

Yet a few days later she felt herself driven to speak 
to him. “Christian, I want to do something for that 
girl.” Her tone pleaded. 

He looked at her in silence. 

“Please, dear.” 

Why should she entreat ? Why was she not free, as 
he, to do as duty bade her ? Questions like these 
scorched in her heart even as she smiled at him wist¬ 
fully. 

“Dear Aylmer,” he said gently, “I don’t want my 
wife concerned in that kind of thing. There is so much 
evil that you know nothing of. I don’t want you to. I 
come in contact with it every day almost. You can’t 
think what it means to me to come home and look in 
your sweet eyes and forget some of the terrible things 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS lOQ 

men must know, but women should not. Some wo¬ 
men have to, of course.They are forced to know. But 
you need not.” 

Christian felt himself badly placed. In reality he 
had no serious objection to his wife’s interesting her¬ 
self in reason in the troubles of unfortunate human¬ 
ity. But he had learnt to fear the force of her tempera¬ 
ment. The complexity and strength of character 
which made her a woman of powerful fascination to 
the man who loved her, might, he felt, drive her to¬ 
wards experiments of which a weaker woman would 
be wisely afraid. There was a thoroughness about her 
which appalled him; she was incapable of the ladylike 
dilettante interest in vital matters with which most 
women appeased their consciences. Unknown to her, 
he was watching with passionate interest the progress 
of her garden on Mary Street. Figuratively and liter¬ 
ally she had ploughed her way through difficulties 
which to her ignorance, doubled by that of the man 
she had there, must have seemed at times quite insu¬ 
perable. Yet she had pursued her intention undaunt¬ 
edly — he felt how tender he could have been to her if 
it had only failed! — the two-hundred-foot lot al¬ 
ready gave promise of abundant bloom, and was 
clearly the pride of the neighbourhood. He had ex¬ 
pected to see it carried away piecemeal, but when he 
had once suggested that to Aylmer, she answered 
composedly: “Oh, no! There are men around there 
who would almost lynch anybody who destroyed our 
. It is safer than high walls could ever make it. 


no THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

It was out of the question — how could he in jus¬ 
tice to herself, allow her the unbridled liberty she 
craved ? Her temperament was as matches in the 
hands of a child — it was his duty to protect her 
from herself. It was an excellent argument — 
with his own temperament left out of it. For he 
had not yet the least perception of his vehe¬ 
ment underlying determination to conquer his wife 
if she showed persistence in opposing her will 
to his. He neglected to remember that he was 
man. 

Therefore he said to her as she sat silent after his 
last remark: “Dear, you have your garden. Be con¬ 
tent with that. It gives you enough to struggle with. 
You’ve done well on that.” 

“Yet, you know” — she laid his hand against 
her cheek — “you know if I had asked you if I 
might do that you would have said, ‘No.’” 

He could not deny it. 

But why — why, must she want to be more than 
just his wife ? Why, she was made for that. She had in 
alluring combination some of the qualities of the co¬ 
quette which all men love, and those deeper, tenderer 
traits in which every man, at some great moment in 
his life, invests all the faith he has. Some men there 
are who grow from youth to manhood pillowed 
against that trust — this man had never dreamed of 
the richness of such experience until it opened to him, 
deep within his wife’s heart. No one knew as he did, 
the subtle sweetness of her nature — it was sacred to 
him alone. And looking at her now, he feared with 


THE WORK. OF OUR HANDS 


III 


all his fierce young energy, the broadening of her 
interests. Himself — it was enough 

And for the first time, consciously, the man in him 
rose hot, to master the errant impulses of this woman 
beloved, to whom Love must — should — be all. 


CHAPTER EIGHT 


I T was proof of the strength of will that Christian 
feared in his wife, that as the days passed she 
said nothing further to him in regard to the 
question at issue between them. 

They were in the midst of particularly brilliant so¬ 
cial festivities consequent upon the marriage of a 
widely popular couple of their acquaintance, and 
Christian observed with relief that Aylmer appeared 
to be engrossed in the duties which fell to her as the 
wife of the most prominent young man in Weston. 
And it was with particular chagrin that he hurried to 
her one evening as she was finishing dressing and said; 

“Dear, it’s too bad. I can’t go with you to-night. 
I’ve just had a wire, and must catch the 9:25 East. 
But you will go, won’t you ? My darling, you are 
beautiful.” He stood away, and looked at her for a 
moment with eyes that glowed. “Aylmer, my wife,” 
he whispered, drawing her near to him, “I wonder if 
you know how much I love you!” 

She smiled at him. “Dear, I know,” she said 
simply. 

Yet, when he was gone, her eyes were wet. Why, 
why, if he loved her — ? 


112 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS II3 

Presently her father came in; she rushed upon him 
with an enthusiasm that almost dismayed him. “ Oh, 
dad dear, it’s so good to see you! Why, I haven’t seen 
you for a week, a whole long week. ” 

Steadily, as time distanced her girlhood from her, 
she realized with ever clearer comprehension, how rich 
her young life had been in its nearness to great emo¬ 
tions, to noble impulses, and to lofty simplicity. 

“You’re going to prayer-meeting, dad, aren’t you 
I’ll go with you. I won’t go to the Dunhams’. ” She 
explained her husband’s departure. Prayer-meeting! 
But a little while ago how she would have laughed at 
the bare idea of that for her — now. But to-night she 
felt suddenly hungered for she knew not what. 

“I’m so tired of it all, dad — of the clothes I wear, 
the food I eat, the people I smile at, the things I 
think —^ oh. I’m so tired of my own mind. Yes, to¬ 
night I’ll go with you. ” 

“With me.?” He looked radiant; then doubtful. 
“ But not like that, my child. ” 

“Like this!” She had forgotten — she looked down 
at herself — at her bare arms and her white neck 
around which pearls were strung — at her gown 
filmy with lace — at the fan set with diamonds dang¬ 
ling from the long chain at her waist. That she un¬ 
clasped and threw aside. 

“Gh, it’s a chilly night, even if it is June. I’ll throw 
a long cloak over me, dad dear. I shall look like a nun 
— your saints shall not be grieved by my gorgeous¬ 
ness. ” 

“But wait a moment,” she said when she was at 


114 the work of our hands 

last ready. “I’m nervous to-night.” She went into the 
dining-room — he followed her without thinking — 
and poured out a glass of wine from a decanter on the 
sideboard. 

“Oh, my child!” The exclamation seemed forced 
from him. Suddenly everything — the beauty, the 
lavishness of highly wrought detail in the stately room 

— the emphasis of luxury over all — the sparkle of 
the wine — hurt his old eyes strangely. 

Aylmer set down the empty glass and turned to her 
father. “Oh, but dad — ” she paused, for there smote 
in upon her anew a sense of that gulf which yawned 
now between the old days and these. A glass of wine 

— her precious father — he questioned the ethics of 
that! 

Forsythe remained silent. For he was remembering 
with curious humility, which was, however, but a 
variation of pride, that his daughter was Mrs. Bron- 
sart — that his ways were no longer hers. It was un¬ 
deniable that there had been no evidence yet of that 
influence upon her husband which he had confidently 
expected of her, and for which he continued in prayer, 
but influences were subtle forces, judged oflFhand. To 
a servant in faith the Lord must ultimately grant the 
desire of the heart. 

The church known as the Central Presbyterian 
was a big, old-fashioned edifice built in the early days 
to accommodate a large and devout congregation, to 
whom any intimation of architectural beauty would 
have savoured of the wiles of the scarlet woman. Now, 
however, as a sop to the frivolity of a young and irre- 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS II5 

ligious generation an ambitious board of trustees had 
superintended the decoration of the “audience- 
room” with such overwhelming ignorance of the ec¬ 
clesiastical fitness of things that it presented the gaudy 
attractiveness of a dance-hall. Any old-time tendency 
towards reverence in the house of God was render¬ 
ed difficult to the occupants of opera chairs, facing a 
platform of which the furnishings were upholstered 
in a lively tint of sky blue. The services were ad¬ 
vertised as being “bright and cheerful;” it seemed 
only a question of time when, if the trustees succeed¬ 
ed in their plans for the entertainment of humanity, 
they would be described as “blithe and mirth-pro¬ 
voking. ” 

But below stairs, in the room where the superin¬ 
tendent of the Sunday-school held his weekly round¬ 
up of the young lambs of the flock, and where at the 
mid-week meeting what remnant there was of pious 
and respectable sheep gathered for prayer and praise, 
the ancient order of mustiness still prevailed. 

As Aylmer stepped into the basement with her 
father, the damp air, heavy with the sighs of dead and 
gone saints enveloped her like a fog, and set her back 
into that lost childhood in which this peculiar odour 
as of decaying piety, had always been associated 
with her conceptions of God and morality, as also 
with a number of distinctly disagreeable people 
whose conscious perfection was a standing rebuke 
to a perishing world. She had often wondered why 
God did not choose more attractive individuals for 
His saints. 


Il6 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

She was conscious now of the little flutter which 
passed over the meeting as she walked in — indeed, 
the sweep of her silken skirts struck her as unpleas¬ 
antly obtrusive, and the way to the front seat, which 
her father always occupied, as very long. She sub¬ 
sided as quietly as might be, and while her father bent 
his white head in prayer, she studied the drab walls, 
insistently splashed with blue and crimson texts. 
After all, what hypnotic power of suggestion there 
was in those inescapable verses, ever before the eye: 
“ God so loved the world — she read that again and 
again — “Lovest thou Me?” — “Upon this rock I 
will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not 
prevail against it.’’ 

Marvellous power was entrusted to these trem¬ 
bling saints. She looked about at them with sud¬ 
den interest, as she might upon the inhabitants of 
another world. All this was what they believed ? 
Did they ? Did her father, dear saint of God that he 
was ? 

And then, sharp across her reflections, there glinted 
the gay tantalizing melody of the Habanera song as 
she had heard it from the throat of a famous Carmen a 
few nights before. 
























THE WORK OF OUR HANDS II7 

The blood in her veins quickened. Bah! What 
knew these pallid souls of the scarlet and flame of hu¬ 
man life. To them its tones were all drab — the vital 
spark at the root of them smothered beneath the grey 
ash of burnt-out convictions for which once, in the 
brave long ago, their religious forebears had laid down 
their lives and counted it “all joy,” but which now, 
they knew in their hearts there was no longer any ex¬ 
cuse for cherishing save that of cowardice. 

She sat straight, and drew her cloak close about her. 
It was well, indeed, for her to realize that this church 
of her childhood had become an alien spot to her. 

Ah, but her father! She looked at him intently. 
How well the simplicity of his faith became him! She 
could not imagine him other than as he was — she 
would not wish him other. 

The pastor came in — a man of innocence and sin¬ 
cerity. He set forth before his people twice a Sunday 
an antiquated theology of the horrors of which he had 
not the least conception — the words “damnation” 
and “everlasting death” were constantly upon his 
benevolent old lips — had he stepped carelessly upon 
a worm he would have felt the stain of murder upon 
his soul. Each Sabbath it was borne in anew upon the 
minds of the trustees that he was a piece of furniture 
distinctly out of keeping with the style of pulpit dec¬ 
oration demanded by an enlightened modern taste, 
but he had a curious hold upon a large proportion of 
the congregation, and they had not yet seen their way 
clear to relegate him to the lumber-room where he 
belonged. 



Il8 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

The meeting began with the singing of a group of 
evangelistic hymns, and Aylmer listened, at first crit¬ 
ical, then stirred to a consciousness of a spirit at work 
upon the dry bones. But what tricks upon themselves 
these godly people were capable of playing! They un¬ 
derstood how to manipulate their emotions as effect¬ 
ively as the Roman Catholic whom they despised. 

Her father’s voice in prayer! — she bent her head, a 
thrill in every nerve, but she hardened herself again to 
the role of critic. What a voice it was! — what depths 
of tenderness, of pathos, of entreaty it held. It would 
have been worth a fortune to him on the stage. What 
a great part religion had played in his life. Yes, he was 
what the scholar would sneer at as an uncultured 
man—could the scholar have equalled the dignity 
and beauty of language as natural to him in prayer as 
breath to the other ? For to him behind the veil there 
was ever the vision of the Eternal — he had learned a 
majesty of utterance taught in no school of oratory 
whereby to approach the Presence. And to-night his 
heart was all a-quiver, for was not his child beside 
him, there before the throne of grace — his child, 
crown of his life, in whom he yearned to see manifest 
the fruits of the Spirit ? 

A responsive reading was in progress when the side 
door opened, and the rector of the Church of the 
Ascension came in, and took the seat evidently pre¬ 
pared for him beside the pastor. 

Again, that little breath of astonishment pulsed 
through the audience. Verily, this was a night of dra¬ 
matic effects for them. 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS II9 

And in her seat, Aylmer felt rather than saw the 
swift look in the young man’s eyes when he dis¬ 
covered her there. 

**Out on the ocean all boundless we ride, 

We’re homeward bound, homeward bound.” 

Her father’s voice, a tenor, clear and carrying even 
now in its aging tones, rose sweetly strong beside her. 
He sang with unconscious abandon — the spirit of the 
hymn had him in thrall. 

“Steady, O pilot! stand firm at the wheel. 

Steady! we soon shall outweather the gale.” 

How rapt his face! — how real to him this picture 
of the transient voyage of life! 

“Into the harbour of heaven now we glide, 

We’re home at last; 

Softly we drift on its bright silver tide, 

We’re home at last. 

Glory to God! all our dangers are o’er 
We stand secure on the glorified shore. ” 

How passionate his faith in the life immortal! — he 
dwelt serene beneath the mighty promise of it, strong 
to endure the tempest and the wreck with the lights of 
that eternal harbour ever before his eyes. 

How could he believe as he did } How easy to say to 
him that from the great waste of waters of eternity no 
messenger had ever returned bearing branch of hope. 
Why, of course, his faith, militant as it seemed, could 



120 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

be destroyed, if one went deliberately to work to do it. 
His strong sense would not find it possible to reject 
the evidence against some of his most cherished be¬ 
liefs if he were once made to face it. But what would 
be gained by such destruction ? What would it profit 
him to have it proved that the lights he discerned so 
joyously across the tempest-driven sea of life were but 
beams from his own too eager imagination ? 

But truth — was it not better at any price than de¬ 
lusion, deceit I Yes, if one could be sure of getting it 
in place of delusion. But who did Had the Bronsarts 
clearer insight into the deep things of life than this 
dear, believing father beside her 

She debated this point while one brother after 
another led in prayer. Was it not likely that her father 
had more of truth and less of illusion than many who 
believed themselves possessed of the gift of all mys¬ 
teries and all knowledge — who would have derided 
his antiquated faiths as evidence of inferior mental 
endowment I 

Ah, but that was because of his nature and that 
type of character which sought naturally the things of 
the spirit. As an avowed agnostic the mystical and 
ethical would still have dominated all other qualities 
in him. On the other hand, Christie Bronsart as a re- 
vivalistic Methodist would probably have believed — 
absolutely believed — no more than he did now, 
and his ethics might have been on an even lower 
plane — he would have been so quick to see the ad¬ 
vantage such large profession of piety afforded him 
for extra shady operations. 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS I2I 

Aylmer sighed. These were difficult questions. 

The prayers ended, and the old pastor arose. “Dear 
brethren and sisters: Our brother of the neighbouring 
church has kindly consented to speak to us to-night. I 
myself am learning much from him, and would that 
you, too, might listen to some of the truths I think he 
has to teach. And let us, whether we can agree with 
him or not, give kindly heed to him to-night. ” 

The meeting was electrically still as the young rec¬ 
tor of the Ascension Church stepped forward. His tall 
figure outlined itself delicately slim against the grey 
background; his dark head with its alert poise, his 
brilliant eyes strangely tenacious in grasp of the peo¬ 
ple before him; the nervous, eager lips of the born 
speaker — all this, allied with his naive youthfulness 
of aspect made instant, fascinating appeal for him. 

For a moment he looked at them. Then he bent his 
head. “O Christ — we are here. Thy children, called 
by Thy name. Are we worthy ? Thou knowest. Day 
after day. Thou dost meet us, each one, in the way, 
and say unto us: Whither goest thou ? And do we 
answer: With thee, O Christ, to the Cross, if need be ? 

“O God, help us, that we may at all times and 
ever)^here give our strength to the weak, our sub¬ 
stance to the poor, our sympathy to the suffering, and 
our hearts to Thee.’’ 

And then he began the direct appeal to the con¬ 
sciences of his hearers which was to leave ineradic¬ 
able stamp upon the souls of some that heard, and 
hearing, understood. 

“ Down there, by the polluted river, there is dying 


122 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

to-night a little child — its life choked out of it by 
foul air, foul food. I have been sitting beside it until I 
came here. God sent that tiny soul into the world 
upon some mission. To-night, we are sending it back 
to Him, His order cancelled. 

“ Down there, in the festering alleys along the river 
front, there are children playing to-night. That is, we 
suppose them to be playing. In reality they are attend¬ 
ing a night-school for the propagation of crime —we 
furnish the school for them, because as a playground 
we furnish them only the festering alley. 

‘‘To-night in this town of which we are so proud, 
there are girls going to destruction because they 
serve us through the day in department stores at half 
a living wage. As the mother of one of them said to 
me yesterday: ‘Didn’t the manager tell my girl there 
wasn’t any call for a wise young woman to starve ?’ 

“As good men and women of business we are proud 
of ourselves, my friends, when we buy cheap. Is it 
not about time that we began to ask ourselves what it 
is that we are buying cheap ?” 

How still and insistently penetrating the young 
voice was — how calm the manner. Yet in that very 
calmness there inhered an intensity of dramatic force 
that held the people before Boothroyd breathless. 
Instance after instance he gave, unrelenting, of the 
horrors of that life in which his hearers had uncon¬ 
sciously so often thanked God they had no part. 

But at last, for a painfully still moment, he paused. 
His eyes had not once met Aylmer’s. They did not 
now; his voice but sank lower as he spoke again. “ For 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS I23 

months I have watched a young girl going to pieces 
on the cruelest rocks of human experience. And I 
have found no woman to help her. It demands the 
noblest sort, friends, to reach down into the blackest 
pit. Yet one there was, I think, who might have saved 
that soul.” 

Aylmer threw back her cloak, unconscious of the 
bare neck and arms thus revealed to the startled 
people about her. She felt herself choking, stifled by 
her indignation. For how dare — how dare he ? She 
sat high in her seat, drawn tense, a brilliant figure in 
that drab assemblage. Many eyes rested upon her, fas¬ 
cinated, disapproving, envious. Yet some were tender, 
for there were about her men and women sweet of soul, 
who looked upon her, and longed that her heart, so 
restless under its weight of gems, might find peace in 
“believing.” But Aylmer had forgotten the people 
about her — she was unconscious of everything save 
that tall slight figure which stood there, accusatory — 
in the hot silence of her heart she flung back answer 
after answer to him as he proceeded with his address. 

Her father watched her, suddenly afraid — he 
knew not of what. He drew nearer to her — laid his 
hand timidly upon hers. But this was not the soft 
hand of his little girl — the fingers were sharp with 
jewels. With a swift movement Aylmer lifted his hand 
to her lips — she felt inalienably near to her father in 
that moment, and something passionately in tumult 
within her demanded outlet. 

The round, white-faced old clock ticked near to 
closing time. Boothroyd paused — then made last 


124 the work of our hands 

effort to draw these people to him. “My friends, all 
this is not new to you. It is literally dinned into your 
ears from day to day. Philanthropy has become the 
pose of our time — I am tempted to say, the crime. 
It is organized to distraction, and it has afforded an 
excellent opportunity to a number of self-seeking indi¬ 
viduals to become prominent and to deceive others 
into believing them pure in heart. The cult of phil¬ 
anthropy has achieved proud place in the press — it 
colours politics — the society woman seeks in it fresh 
sensation — the man who corners the market and sees 
his ruined brother a suicide receives the gilded title of 
philanthropist in exchange for a cheque which repre¬ 
sents the price of a life gone down in despair and 
dishonour. 

‘‘Do not misunderstand me. I do not disbelieve in 
organized effort. Far from it. But far, far above it, I 
place individual effort. You subscribe, perhaps, to 
this or that charity. But there is nothing redemptive 
in a dollar. It must be outstretched to save in a warm, 
human hand. The soul in the mire is never drawn out 
by this society or that. But what are you to do ? 
Listen! — ’’he lifted his hand — the town clock slowly 
struck nine — neither man nor woman stirred in the 
still room — “down there on the river front that little 
child by now has gone back to God, bearing terrible 
indictment against us — not against society — against 
yow, against me. 

“The boys are still there, gathered about their 
leaders, in those loathsome alleys. Some of them have 
learnt lessons they knew nought of one hour ago — 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS I 25 

lessons full of peril to you and to me. And I say, 
Thank God for that!” — he struck the table before 
him sharply — ‘Tor it seems as if nothing but peril to 
our precious selves and our children will arouse us to 
a sense of what is due to these poor outcast ones. 
The girls ” — he paused again — his eyes swept in 
glance of fire the faces before him — he looked high 
— “O God, have mercy upon them — we have none. 

IMy friends, there is in this city just one religious 
organization which carries its gospel with it where- 
ever it goes. We don’t think much of it. We smile at 
its crude music, its dense ignorance, its tawdry affec¬ 
tation of officialism. But suppose some night you try 
the experiment of following in its train. Borrow a uni¬ 
form if you can — brother, if your heart is right, you 
will receive a wonderful baptism ofthe Spirit when you 
put it on — and go out with them — sing their strid¬ 
ent hymns — kneel down in the dust of the street 
when they pray — for once help them to hold high the 
banner of their crucified Christ, symbol of that mighty 
love which would draw all men unto it. And then, per¬ 
haps there, while the noisy drum beats, and the song 
rises shrill in your ear, there will come to you the glory 
of the inner vision, the message of the still, small voice 
of your soul.” 

He waited; then with hands outspread in benedic¬ 
tion: “Arise, let us go hence.” 

The meeting was over. 


CHAPTER NINE 


many’s the time when I was a young 
%/%/ growing lad,” said Christie Bronsart, 
▼ T ‘‘that I’ve taken a quarter out of my 
pocket and looked and looked at it, and longed to 
spend it for something to eat — I was so hungry. ” 

‘‘And yet — you wouldn’t!” exclaimed Aylmer. 
“Why?” 

They were sitting on the lawn behind the house, in 
the sunshine of a golden afternoon. The dense shade 
of giant elms sheltered them from the glare; the deep 
green of velvety grass was rest to the eye. In the dis¬ 
tance, against the high wall there was a riot of old- 
fashioned flower and shrub — tall pink hollyhocks 
banked against lilacs past their blooming — masses 
of white phlox looked down upon by yellow sun¬ 
flowers — here the purple beauty of a pansy bed — 
there the tall spires (piercing the blue,) of a group of 
spruces with their air of austere remoteness from the 
rabble of green things beneath them. 

“Why” repeated Christie Bronsart. “Ah!” he 
paused, his eyes seeking that far-fled past. “My child, 
it seems to me now that I never did eat unless I just 
had to. I couldn’t afford that kind of luxury.” “And if 

126 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS I 27 

I had” — he looked back over his shoulder at the 
stately house behind them — “well, you and the boy 
would not have been here, perhaps.” 

Aylmer’s eyes warmed. A hungry boy and the 
quarter in his hand! It was heroism of a determined 
type. 

And the shrewd man watching her, divined her 
feeling and felt repaid for that little break into the 
difficult personal history to which he so seldom 
referred. 

“I remember so well — Oh, it seems but yester¬ 
day — the noon time that I came home and found my 
mother in tears. I just stood and looked at her — I 
had never realized before that my mother could weep. 
She never had — no matter what had happened to us. 
She had always been so strong to meet the battle. 
Well, I came in a boy, but I went back to my work a 
man. It was my father, of course — it always was my 
father. We could never get ahead because of him. But 
that day I went back to the screw factory fiercely de¬ 
termined to conquer. It was the great beginning. In 
two years, I, a boy, was foreman. In ten years I owned 
that screw factory. And I don’t believe I ever once 
had all I wanted to eat until I did. But my mother”— 
his light, easy voice shook suddenly — “I would give 
ten years of my life now if she might but have known 
one of freedom from the grind, the bitterness of such 
poverty as was ours. ” 

“Ah, but she must have known, she understood 
that you were going to conquer!” cried Aylmer. Her 
eyes were aglow. 


128 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


“Yes, she just saw that and died,’’ said Bronsart. 

“Oh, for her it was enough. I don’t believe that a 
mother like that would ever have cared for ease and 
luxury. She would have despised all that. ” 

“Maybe.” He was silent a while; then he added: 
“When my little girl came, I called her after my old 
mother — she had been a Von Viet — but Vonviette 
isn’t Von Viet, is it 

“No, of course not. ” Aylmer flashed a look at him. 

“There’s just all the difference between Vonviette 
and my mother, that there is between Von Viet and 
Vonviette. ” 

“Perhaps. Still, one can’t be sure. Some day you 
may suddenly be astonished to find a great deal more 
of her grandmother in Vonviette than you could be¬ 
lieve now. ” 

“Maybe. But she doesn’t look much like it at this 
moment,” said Bronsart. 

Aylmer followed his glance, and there was Von¬ 
viette trailing over the grass in the elegance of a white 
lace gown. 

“Iced tea.? Yes, please, Aylmer. Freezing! I’m so 
warm. I’m seething.” 

“But it’s not such a hot day,” said Aylmer smiling. 

“No. It’s just myself. Oh!” 

She threw her hat, then her gloves, on the grass. 
The wind shook the roses — a drift of petals fell at her 
dainty feet as though the green carpet beneath were 
not soft enough to cushion them. 

“What’s up. Von.?” inquired Christian lazily. He 
had been a silent listener to his wife and father; it had 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS IZg 

occurred to him that his keen-eyed parent under¬ 
stood far more than he had supposed of the diffi¬ 
culties which were gathering about him, and had 
desired to do him a diplomatic turn. It was, perhaps, 
well for Aylmer to hear it emphasized that the 
house of Bronsart had been founded in hardship 
and self-denial. 

“What’s up? Just this. There was a man at the 
Clearys’ this afternoon. I was sweet to him — per¬ 
fectly sweet — Oh, I will not disguise that fact from 
you, sonny— ” she threw a rosebud at her father — 
“you see, I was busy making somebody else desper¬ 
ate — and that man, right there, with people in the 
garden close to us — that man asked me if — if — 
and do you know what I said to him ? I just looked 
at him and said: “Go to the devil, Mr. Kent, It’s 
with him you belong. ” 

Christian sat up. “Kent!” he exclaimed. 

“Yes, Kent.” Even now the girl was choked with 
the rage of remembrance. 

Christie Bronsart whistled. “ Kent — what’s Kent 
done that he should be talked to like a felon ?” 

“Things not fit for your young ears, sonny. ” 

“Oh, you women are hard to please,” said her 
father indulgently. 

“Ah, if we were only hard enough!” The girl set¬ 
tled into haughty silence. 

“But Vonviette,” said Aylmer when they found 
themselves alone for a moment.—“When Mr. Booth- 
royd talked to us the other night, dear, I thought you 
— didn’t care.” 


130 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

“You thought that Vonviette bit her lip; her blue 
eyes flashed tears. But she said nothing further. 

The summer passed; Aylmer and her husband 
went to the seashore with the rest of their kind. They 
had debated going abroad, but Christie Bronsart gave 
sign for the first time, of leaning upon his son; there 
were disturbing reports as to a possible strike among 
the men, and he wished to have Christian within easy 
reaching distance. 

Christian had been eager to get away; he persuaded 
himself that a change of scene and interest would rid 
Aylmer of an outlook upon life which threatened to 
become morbid. 

But at the end of two months he felt that he knew 
much less of his wife than he had before. She had 
plunged with Vonviette into the thickest of the social 
fray, displaying to his astonished eyes qualities full- 
grown of which he had never suspected least germ in 
her. Day after day he nursed grievance in his heart; 
she neglected him — it became evident that other 
men discovered coercing charm in her. 

At last the knowledge pierced him sharp — the 
pangs of jealousy possessed him — him, Christian, 
her husband! 

There had been a dance at one of the cottages, and 
during the endless evening, while he was forced into 
sullen attentions towards women whom he found 
hopelessly uninteresting, he caught constant glimpse 
of her, and always with her, or near to her, the man 
whom he felt himself growing to hate. Yet, when she 
was out of sight, his torment was even less bearable. 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


I3I 

But when, long after midnight, he found himself at 
last alone with Aylmer in the silence of their own 
rooms, the beating of his heart almost forbade speech. 
She stood in front of a pier-glass, idly looking at her¬ 
self, as she pulled a white lace scarf ruthlessly through 
her fingers. It occurred to him that she was remem¬ 
bering something — something that fool Inderrieden 
had said to her perhaps. It was not to be borne. 

“Aylmer, do you think it — well — to show quite 
as much — favour — as you certainly do — to — to 
Inderrieden ? ’’ 

Bah! His hands were trembling like any woman’s. 

She turned and looked at him, unhurriedly — it 
smote him afresh that she was an Aylmer new to him. 

She was wearing a little mousseline gown, pink 
with rose leaves — girlishly simple. A wide pink sash 
defined her slender waist, and fell to the hem amid a 
dainty confusion of frills. Her neck, and it was very 
beautiful, was bare. 

He had loved the soul of this girl — or had thought 
so — had cossetted himself soft upon the belief that 
while all men might behold and see that she was fair, 
he alone might appraise her hidden pricelessness of 
heart. But now, as he looked at her, the thought 
stabbed him that a man might sell his soul for the 
fairness of her, with no heed or demand for aught in 
her save that. 

“Aylmer!” It was a cry, breaking from him un¬ 
bidden. 

“No, perhaps it is not wise. But it seems to be in¬ 
evitable. ” 


132 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

‘‘Inevitable!’’ 

“Why, yes. One must amuse one’s self.” 

“Aylmer!” 

“Let me explain, dear.” She looked very calm, 
very wise. “I have wanted in all these weeks to find 
out just how a woman in my station in life is sup¬ 
posed to pass her time. You see, she must have no 
serious interests — at least, I must not. So I have been 
experimenting. I have tried to do as nearly as possi¬ 
ble just what I saw other women do. And you were 
pleased — proud — when you saw that I was going 
to be a success here.” 

He knew that. 

“ But did it never occur to you, dear, that there is 
always a reverse side ? There is Mrs. Van Wyck — a 
woman of great charm — and tact. Did you never 
think what an amount of energy she spends in pre¬ 
venting the general public from seeing the reverse 
side of the shield she carries so gracefully. Mr. Van 
Wyck has probably taken a good many looks at it. 
You see there is young Marley. ” 

“You mean, then—” Christian hesitated — 
“Aylmer, is it possible that you—you imply that 
there is always some man 

“Did you think, dear, that these women you ad¬ 
mire are filled to the brims of their souls with happi¬ 
ness by being irreproachable hostesses, and all that 
sort of empty time-killing.? Shall a woman be forced 
to exhaust every art to make of herself a thing of 
beauty, and then be expected to content herself with 
smiling sweetly into space like a stuffed doll 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


133 


Christian began to speak — she stopped him. 

“Wait! I want to say all. Then you may judge. I 
didn’t plan what I have done. It grew upon me. I had 
to see once for all, whether happiness would be pos¬ 
sible to me — this way.” She threw her husband a 
strange look. “Perhaps it would, Christian,” But 
suddenly, she was breathless—she was remembering. 

“But I—Aylmer — you forget — as your hus¬ 
band — ” 

She smiled swiftly — he felt the desperation of im¬ 
potence before the consciousness, at last fully awake 
in her, of the vast power of the woman over the man 
who loves her. 

“As my husband,” she repeated. She bent towards 
him, and knew herself tormenting — she had learnt 
much of late. “But dear — you forget — a husband 
is nothing.” 

He looked at her. 

“That seems to shock you. But why You see it 
here, for yourself. I want you to see it. And there is 
something else I want you to realize. ” 

In a moment she was in a flame. “ Marriage is not to 
women what men like to pretend they think it is. It 
is not all-inclusive, all-satisfying. A woman of fine 
energies, of large nature, was never meant to sit with¬ 
in the domestic pen, awaiting patiently her lord’s re¬ 
turn from that world of interest, of endeavour in 
which she may have no part. Oh, Christian — ” she 
studied him a moment; then added slowly: “Oh, 
how I wish I knew you well enough just to tell you, 
dear, some of the things a woman thinks about a 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


134 

man, and never, never tells him. I wonder,’’ her voice 
was very wistful — “if you’d love me any more.” 

Love her.? He looked at her, his heart hot with pain. 
It was bitter to him that she had never seemed more 
full of charm than in this moment of revolt. 

“But you — ” he said roughly — “you don’t care 
whether I love you or not. A husband’s nothing. ” 

“Ah, isn’t he — isn’t he .f*” she breathed. 

She slipped from her seat and knelt beside him, 
lifting her sweet lips to his, forgetting now all that she 
had learnt of the value of her charm, of its endanger¬ 
ing power — remembering only that this was her 
husband — the man whom she loved. 

He caught her to him —crushed her lips against his 
— bruised the perfume from the roses at her 
breast. Ah, it was a moment possible only to the hus¬ 
band, of which the lover may make to himself but 
dream. 

But the silence was broken at last. Aylmer drew 
away from her husband — suddenly, adorably shy. 

“What a stupid, unoriginal way of loving women 
men have,” she said lightly. 

“I daresay,” he answered, “ but it satisfies us. And 
that is why we make love to women at all, I suppose. 
It is primarily not for the sake of satisfying them.” 

“No. And you demand so much from us, and take 
so little for granted. Because I make a few experi¬ 
ments — ” 

His face clouded. “M” darling — Inderrieden,” 
he said abruptly. 

She fell silent, remembering. There were some 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS I35 

things she would have liked to tell him, but she must 
not, and it vexed her soul that she dared not be frank 
with him. 

‘‘Yet some of these women are so clever,” she said, 
following out her line of thought — “much cleverer 
than their husbands, who are managing immense con¬ 
cerns. But they have never been permitted to have 
any interests outside of themselves. Their husbands 
and fathers have been just like you, dear.” 

“But, Aylmer, you are such a dangerous extremist. 
You know that.” 

“I daresay. “She spoke absently; she was thinking 
of the shock that the discovery of some things in her 
own nature had lately been to her. She had faced them 
squarely, from the instant that she had first begun to 
suspect herself. Perhaps if she had never met a man 
calculated to play the subtlest of all games with such 
delicacy of skill, such swift appreciation, she might 
have remained ignorant of the possibilities lurking 
within her. Yet she owned to herself with absolute 
candour that the complexity she had discovered in 
herself was not unpleasing to her. 

After all, what constituted moralityThat she 
could ask herself such a question was, at first, a su¬ 
preme shock to her. Yet she ended by arguing that 
question long, at times in great bewilderment. Was 
she not driven to the conclusion that virtue was but 
rarely matter of choice ^ — people were good because 
the accident of conditions assisted them to be so — 
the fancies of a woman with six children and all the 
housework to do with one pair of hands, did not 


136 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

lightly turn to thoughts of love, and in a census of the 
moral and the immoral she would be most undeserv- 
ingly, perhaps, enrolled among the righteous. There 
were men, pillars most rigidly upright of domestic 
architecture, who devoutly thanked God that they 
were not as their profligate neighbours, all uncon¬ 
scious that their vaunted morality was merely the 
result of a fortuitous lack of temptation. 

Love ? — the love that sent her to her husband’s 
lips — Ah, it was a treacherous emotion, but the dig¬ 
nifying, the ennobling of it had glorified humanity. 
The vows of poverty, of chastity, assumed by men 
and women in all ages under many forms — what 
smothered cry of the heart was there, what terror of 
the mighty forces of greed and passion Yet the man 
on this side, the woman on that, surveyed their small 
souls complacently, and said: Behold me, and the 
morality that is mine! 

Aylmer looked tenderly at her husband — how 
little he knew of the nature within her which de¬ 
manded — which must have large place for its 
breathing. 

Love him ? — of course she loved him. But there 
were many great things in life beside the love of a hus¬ 
band. What strange egotism in him that could think 
otherwise! 

Long afterwards she remembered this night and 
the feelings that had dominated her, with tenderest 
pity for the girl who thought that within such brief 
space of experience she had plumbed the mysterious 
deeps of marriage and made herself acquainted with 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS I37 

all the antagonistic elements contained therein, and 
who felt herself strong to deal with them. 

Love had come to her so easily, so generously, and 
the man she had married was so worthy of her affec¬ 
tion, that beyond the difficult spiritualizing of the 
bond, it had made as yet but small demand upon her. 
There had indeed been strange moments for her 
when she had suffered from that faintness of soul 
which comes to some women in marriage, and from 
which some never recover — when she had reflected 
with indignation, at times against man, at times 
against God, that there must be possibilities of for¬ 
bidden tragedy within every woman endowed with 
the nature she was assured it was her crown to pos¬ 
sess. Like many another woman, since the day when 
the serpent beguiled in Paradise, she had pondered, 
bewildered. 

Christian^’’ she said now to her husband, “ do you 
know that it’s a difficult thing to be a woman and 
make a satisfactory affair of it 

“ I have never thought it was for you, ” he answered 
simply. She still sat with her hand in his; he watched 
the single great pearl rising and falling with the 
whiteness of her throat. 

She sighed. She was thinking of Inderrieden. The 
qualities in her that appealed to her husband, appeal¬ 
ed similarly to him. 

“Dear, I was not thinking of myself as satisfying 
you, but of myself as not satisfying me. Any pretty 
woman with a respectable mind would satisfy you. ” 

He laughed. 


138 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

“ Yes, but she would.’’ 

“Oh, I daresay. Vm not denying it.’’ He laughed 
again. 

“ Polygamists, all of you!” she exclaimed carelessly. 

She was thinking again. “Dear boy, how shocked 
he would be if I told him how coldly I have wondered 
lately whether I couldn’t, after all, love another man 
as much as I do him. What would he think if I told 
him that I just longed to know — that I had experi¬ 
mented with myself and the experiment — ?” 

Christian, watching her, saw the flash in her eyes. 

“Aylmer, my darling, don’t you know, don’t you 
feel that you have something in you — what is it, 
child ? — that could drive a man — Oh, never mind! 
Don’t you know, dear, that you’re what a man who 
knows you well enough, will always realize to be — ” 
he broke off; he was thinking of that fool Inderrieden. 

“What.?” she asked. 

He shook his head. 

“What a curious boy!” But sne was glad he had 
dropped the definition incomplete — she had no wish 
to hear her character analysed at present. 

Suddenly, like a burst of flame in the sky, the 
thought of Boothroyd shot across her mind. Had she 
forgotten him — had she forgotten that still meeting 
in the musty school-room ? Ah! 

“Christian, listen to me. Don’t you begin to see, 
dear, that I’m not an easy woman for a man to have 
as his wife.? I never shall be. And do you know that 
for months you have been saying to me practically: be 
content with the butterfly life that fits your station. 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS I39 

Yet you see, you are not content though I have lived 
that life to the best of my ability since I have been 
here — I have wished to do just as the women about 
me did/’ 

“Ah, but you haven’t,” he exclaimed quickly. 
“You are so different from all these women — things 
that you do are, somehow, so much more significant 
because it is you who do them. Don’t you understand 
— you are not like Mrs. Sessions — There! now you 
are angry, of course, but, Aylmer, I must tell you — 
you are, in a way, such an indifferent woman — you 
care so — so little for — men, but, Aylmer, you have 
a dangerous sort — No, dear, I don’t mean — ” 

She interrupted him. “You say that I don’t care for 
men. You are quite wrong. I care a great deal, dear — 
far more than most women do. I should like you quite 
to understand that.” 

He stared at her, perplexed. 

Suddenly, she broke out at him. “Don't be so sure 
of everything, Christian. Don’t be so certain that I’m 
a sort of domestic saint, safe on a pedestal of your set¬ 
ting up. It doesn’t interest me at all to think of myself 
as that. I did not seek this life here. You threw me 
into it. I have found it entertaining, and I understand 
as I never did before some women I have easily con¬ 
demned.” For a moment she was silent, then she 
flamed at him irrelevantly — it had become a domi¬ 
nant thought — “Why should one man and his home 
bound a woman’s entire interests and energies. Oh, I 
tell you, as it is at present conducted, marriage is 
a stupid, tyrannical institution for the woman. ” 


140 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


“Aylmer,” he cried imperatively. “Be quiet. You 
may forget this — I shall remember. ” 

“ I want you to. I want you to understand that I have 
come at last to the point where I am no longer willing 
to say to you: May I do this or that.? For what do you 
know of me — me ? — what do you love in me that 
any chance man might not ? What are you willing to 
sacrifice for me — of your prejudices, for instance.? 
Not anything, Christian. It outrages your sense — 
the man’s sense — of the fitness of things, that I 
should even suggest such an idea. Why ?” 

Christian faced her with dignity. “Aylmer, as my 
wife — ” 

“ —as your wife— ” she laughed softly. “Dear 
boy, don’t! Say instead: ‘As Aylmer Forsythe’ — 
one sees things much more clearly that way. ” 

“Oh, you drop the Bronsart, then ?” 

“Oh, no, dear. Not at all. It’s Mrs. Bronsart, but 
Aylmer Forsythe. So I was born, and so I shall die.” 

He looked at her, his face suddenly white. “Damn 
the Forsythe!” he said in the stillest voice. The hatred 
of the name, inherent in Bronsart blood and bone, at 
last found bitterest speech. 

Aylmer looked at him steadily. “Oh, I don’t know,” 
she said presently. “The mother may be a damned 
Forsythe, but you see the child will be Bronsart. There 
are compensations.” She leaned over and examined 
intently a rent in the frill of her gown. 

“The child!” He stood back, profoundly moved — 
then stepped towards her. “Aylmer, what do you 
mean ?” It was hard to speak. 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


I4I 


‘‘ Mean ? Why, just what I said ? Is it difficult to 
grasp ?” 

“Aylmer, my darling, my wife!’’ 

But she held up her hand and warded him off. 
“Don’t let us talk about it, please.” 

“ But, dear, aren’t you — aren’t you — glad ? Why, 


“Glad?” she repeated — “glad?” She made a 
passionate gesture with her hands. “Oh, how could 
you ever understand that I have loved to forget — to 
forget that I was married, sometimes — to think that, 
after all, I was a girl, and now I never can.” With al¬ 
most a sob, she bent and kissed her bare arm. “And 
I’ve been such a nice girl — so sweet and white — ” 
her lips quivered helplessly; she looked at him with 
eyes in which tears stood. 

“ But, my darling — ” 

She stepped far back from him. “No, please, you 
mustn’t kiss me. ” She shivered. “ I couldn’t bear to be 
kissed just now.” 

“ I mustn’t kiss you,” he repeated — blank. 

“No — no I Oh, can’t you understand, Christian ? 
— a woman gets so tired of being loved always like 
that.” 

“Like what?” 

She looked at him in silence for a few moments. 
Then she said quietly: “Dear, try liking me for a 
while. I wonder if you could. I like you so much. It’s 
such a satisfying sort of attachment. Any man can 
love almost any woman under certain circumstances. 
But one has to think great things of a person to be able 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


142 

to like them. Did you ever stop and think calmly 
whether you liked me or not ? ” 

The young man’s eyes grew cloudy. ‘‘No, before 
God, I never did, Aylmer. And I never shall. I’ve just 
loved you. I’m sorry if it’s such an unsatisfactory way 
of doing. I don’t know any other. ” 

He felt himself pitifully sincere. What had come to 
Aylmer ? What did she mean ? She had said the 
strangest things. And now — now — she sat there, 
aloof from him, in this supreme moment of their ex¬ 
perience, when his heart made cry to clasp her close, 
and said to him: “Like me — it is enough.” 

He leaned down suddenly — picked up the hem of 
her gown — laid his lips to it. 

“Oh, Christian,” she cried, “don’t, don’t, dear.” 

“Aylmer,” he entreated, “be good to me. Think of 
this — this that is coming to us. Think of it — a little 
child — yours and mine.” 

She sat silent. Yes, it was an Aylmer new to him, 
but what a beloved, what an exalted, what an appeal¬ 
ing Aylmer! 

The problem of her temperament — of the large, 
eager nature scorning the rose-leaf path of existence 
while some must tread hot ploughshares alone — how 
easily is was all to be solved by the mystery of the babe 
at her breast! 

“A little child,” he repeated. “Oh, Aylmer, 
Aylmer!” 


CHAPTER TEN 


ES, Sincerity, but to-night I want to know — I 
mean to know,’' said Aylmer. 



A But the lines of Sincerity’s mouth were un¬ 
compromising. 

‘‘What did that man mean this morning when he 
said to me that he should think I would hate the Bron- 
sarts more than he did ?” 

“What man ? Child, you talk to strange people.” 

“I do — these days. I have been to see his daugh¬ 
ter who is dying — the father is a cripple — he was 
injured years ago in the Works. Oh, yes, they settled 
with him in a way, but after all for years he has been 
practically supported by this little daughter, and now 
she’s dying — worked out, you know. It was not an 
easy place to go to at first — they hate us so.” 

“I don’t see why you should go to such places,” 
said Sincerity stiffly. 

“Don’t you.?” It was a wistful question. “You’re 
like some others. Sin. But never mind that now. I 
want to know about dad. Surely I should know what 
other people seem to. You see, I always supposed that 
dad had failed, and that that was why nothing was 
ever said to me.” 


143 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


144 

“Fail? — your father ? Never!’' 

Yet it took Aylmer a long time to arrive at the 
whole story, and when she had succeeded in ferreting 
out the last detail, she sat a long time silent. 

“So that was it,” she said finally. “They wrecked 
my poor father’s business and in the midst of it all my 
little mother died.” 

Then without further comment, she began to talk 
of trivial things, and Sincerity anxiously watching her, 
alternated between fear and relief at a calmness possi¬ 
ble of the most conflicting interpretations. 

“Well, I must be getting home again. No, you 
needn’t walk over with me. Sin.” She laid her hand 
tenderly on the old woman’s shoulder. “What a dear 
you’ve been to us — first to mother, and always to 
me. 

Yet she spoke lightly, for in this moment of su¬ 
preme anger she feared the emphasizing of a word, a 
look even. 

“No, don’t come down-stairs with me. I’m going to 
sit in the library a few moments. You think dad will 
be home to-morrow ? Well, good-night.” 

She ran swiftly down-stairs and going softly into the 
quiet, untenanted room, closed the door behind her. 
It was brilliant moonlight — she could see her father’s 
big chair, and opposite it, the smaller one in which she 
had always known from childhood that no one must 
sit. Beside it there stood a tall work-basket with a 
square of copper-coloured satin thrown over it; within 
lay a little skirt, half embroidered, designed for her in 
those far-off toddling days of childhood — the needle 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS I45 

remained in it just as her mother’s faltering fingers 
had last left it. 

She drew up a chair and sat down between the two 
empty ones. 

And so she sat for perhaps an hour, while she 
brought things, deep hidden, to the bar. 

“I, a Bronsart,” she whispered almost aloud once, 
‘‘and the daughter of you, 

Ah, but she loved Christian — how she loved him! 
— and he had had no part in that shameful business. 

His father — clever, suave, alert, ever swift to serve 
her pleasure — how was she to meet him after this 
revelation 

How had her father met him, day after day, in the 
intimacy of business for fifteen years and more } 

Her father — in transfiguring light his character 
rose before her — she could have wept at her girlish 
unconsciousness of its beauty, its power, its silent un¬ 
swerving devotion to the ideals of truth, of honour. 
The pathos of his lonely life, scarred with such tragic 
memories, smote in upon her. It was a nature laid out 
on heroic lines, capable of suffering not to be compre¬ 
hended by common clay — he had therefore suffered 
alone, unsolaced by sympathy, nay, disdaining the 
heart’s cry for it. And in time he had fashioned for his 
soul’s sustaining a superb philosophy of life — he was 
one with the Infinite — time, with its brief tale of 
three-score years and ten of pitiful human striving, 
was linked with an eternity in which faith should 
tread triumphant those golden streets of whose glory 
it had been granted rare previsioning, when from the 


146 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

depths of renunciation it had cried: “ I know that God 
liveth.” 

Disappointment, failure, the denial of the realiza¬ 
tion of the powers of which he knew himself pos¬ 
sessed — what were these griefs but gifts from the 
heart of that Wisdom on high which foresaw the end 
from the beginning — which held ever above the 
Cross — the Crown! What did it matter to John For¬ 
sythe that men like Christie Bronsart sneered at him 
— that they had used his stern sense of honour to his 
undoing and their aggrandisement ? 

An old hymn which she had many a time listened to 
her father’s voice singing rose insistent upon her re¬ 
membrance: 


‘‘A charge to keep I have, 

A God to glorify; 

A never-dying soul to save, 

And fit it for the sky.’* 

Ah, her magnificent old father! Was the endeavour 
to ‘‘fit himself for the sky” worth all the struggle, the 
self-discipline, those bitter unshed tears of the heart 
— of a man’s strong heart — over his failure to glorify 
his God with that prestige of worldly success which 
his ambitious nature had so passionately craved ? 

His Bible lay open upon the table as he had last left 
it; in the strong moonlight the heavily marked pas¬ 
sages were easy to read. 

“For I reckon that the sufferings of this present 
time are not worthy to be compared with the glory 
that shall be revealed to us-ward.” 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS I47 

Of such were the mighty promises upon which his 
soul reposed serene with the unconscious arrogance 
of the saint to whom the inner vision has become more 
vital than all that eye has seen or ear heard. 

She read another: ‘‘For if we hope for that which 
we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.’’ 

“Dad, dad!” murmured the girl. She laid her head 
against the back of his chair, thrilled with a new sense 
of nearness to him of whose bone she was bone, of 
whose flesh she was flesh. 

The Bronsarts! For one fierce moment she repudi¬ 
ated them all, with their tawdry interpretation of life 
— their greed of its gauds — their ignorance of its 
deeper meanings — of the mystery of pain — of the 
sacrifice of self-surrender to its great ideals. 

An immortality .? — who dare deny it in the face of 
a soul’s undaunted affirmation of it in its loneliest, 
loftiest moment ^ — and what unutterable width of 
final destiny between the soul which lived to fit itself 
for the sky, and that one which chose to-day to eat, 
drink, and be merry, for to-morrow neither its place 
nor another would know it again. 

The next day brought the laying of the corner-stone 
of the new hospital in which Christie Bronsart was 
taking such active interest — which he had indeed 
promised to “see through.” It had occasioned some 
comment that Boothroyd who was prominent in most 
of the city’s charitable enterprises, should have 
shown such scant sympathy with this one. His precise 
attitude toward it puzzled even so clever an analyst of 
men and motive as Christie Bronsart. And the man 


148 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

himself — what an enigma he was becoming to some 
of the faithful in the Church of the Ascension, which 
Sunday after Sunday was crowded to the doors with a 
congregation composed largely of the confessedly irre¬ 
ligious, who came apparently to see a man who, in the 
most subtly disingenuous of all professions, impressed 
them as undeniably sincere. 

This philanthropic occasion became naturally a 
notable social function; the benefit ball that night 
passed into local history as the limit of Weston’s pos¬ 
sibilities in extravagance and display. 

At the hour when it was understood that she was to 
be ready, Aylmer sat before her mirror, superbly ar¬ 
rayed to grace the event. She had sent her maid away, 
and sat there, idly awaiting her husband. But she 
stared unheedingly at the radiant reflection of herself 
upborne before her, and revealed in all its splendour, 
by the brilliance of a score of electric lights hidden in 
the hearts of the roses of her porcelain dressing-table 
— until suddenly, across that stately presence there 
fell the shadow of a dead girl’s face as she had looked 
upon it that morning in Mead Street. 

Unconsciously, she lifted her hand to ward away 
the vision — it had no place amid this magnificence. 
But it remained, silent, accusing, inescapable. 

And after a long time she rose, the better to see her¬ 
self in the young beauty and state which seemed to her 
in this moment of judgment such cruel mockery. 

A queen’s ransom flashed about her throat — the 
price of scores of poor human lives. 

She looked long and again, as if to brand upon her 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS I49 

conscience this memory of herself as she was, but 
would never be again. 

Then with slow fingers she unclasped her necklace, 
her bracelets; drew the diamond star from her hair — 
then looked at her hands — Ah, no! her rings were 
dear to her, a very part of herself. Perhaps some time 
— but not now — not yet. 

The gems lay before her, a glittering heap upon the 
dressing-table. She felt a sudden abhorrence of them 
and of the woman who could rate her poor body, one 
day to lie still in death as that poor girPs, as worthy 
such sumptuous adorning, the price of another wo¬ 
man’s honour, life. 

She sighed; yet she was glad. For she had at last 
crossed the river upon whose brink she had so long 
lingered. 

The restless steps in the next room quickened; 
Christian came in, hurried, and eager to be gone. 

He looked at her. “ By crickets, Aylmer, you aren’t 
ready yet. You want me to clasp them for you He 
laid his hand upon the jewels. 

“No, dear.” She picked up her long gloves — be¬ 
gan to draw them on. 

“You want Miriam?” He moved to touch the 
bell. 

“No, dear, no. Yes, we had better hurry. It is late.” 

“Aylmer, what has struck you? Don’t you know 
that to-night of all nights you’d better decorate your¬ 
self with every piece of glass you own ?” 

She smiled sweetly — sought to evade the ques¬ 
tion. “Don’t you see, dear — every other woman will 


150 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

do that. Let me be an exception to the glittering 
mob.’’ She moved to the door. 

‘'In that gown .f* My dear, simplicity demands 
white muslin. To the casual beholder you would 
surely convey the impression that the family had 
squandered its last dollar on your gown, and had 
handed your jewels in as security. Your appearance 
suggests the story of the man who spent so much on 
his foundations that he had to forego the satisfaction 
of a roof to his house.” 

“I daresay, dear. But to-night — this is my wish. 
Let it go.” Aylmer spoke gently. 

But Christian set his back against the door; his 
eyes hardened; his mouth took an expression new to 
it not long ago, but already threatening permanence. 
“I should like to know, if I may, Aylmer, what this 
whim to-night really means.” 

“What it means.?” She was still for a moment; 
then she added in the lightest voice — so nearly a 
whisper — “Dear, I cannot wear my diamonds 
again.” 

He looked at her steadily — silent; then turned, 
and opening the door for her politely, said: “Yes, we 
shall be late unless we hurry.” 

The drive was short and rapid; during it neither 
spoke, and when Aylmer went into the Armory her 
heart was hard against her husband. Why would he 
not see that it was worth his while — what an expres¬ 
sion! — to try to understand her, her needs, the diffi¬ 
culties of her nature to herself.? 

But no! he desired but that she be sweet, smiling. 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


I5I 

superbly clothed — a credit to his taste and to his 
pocket-book. To him as to most men her conscience 
hardly existed — oh, his wife must be above suspicion 
of any sort, of course — but of herself, as existing pri¬ 
marily, that she might develop nobly towards the 
highest of which she was capable — yes! he under¬ 
stood that — it meant that she was to be to him as 
nearly as mortal woman might, the perfect wife — to 
his child, the perfect mother. 

Her soft lip curled. 

“Oh, Aylmer,” said Vonviette, pausing for a mo¬ 
ment as she passed on the arm of a clearly infatuated 
young man, “how stunning you look! And hasn’t 
every woman here about broken her neck trying to 
out-jewel the next one!” 

“Yes, really Aylmer, you are the cleverest woman. 
— Tve always said so,” gurgled Mrs. Bronsart; “but 
people — people, you know my dear, are so dense.” 

“Yes, but I’ve not observed that things are less so,” 
remarked Aylmer. 

“Things } Things less dense than people ^ My dear, 
how could they beWhat an unusual idea! But real¬ 
ly, your gown, you know — the general effect — pos¬ 
itively regal I call it. In your position, too, when 
every one knows that you just have chests and chests 
of jewels — and isn’t it shocking the way the price of 
rubies is going up” — Mrs. Bronsart was literally 
harnessed with them — “Oh, my dear, you’re a great 
success. I quite approve.” 

Aylmer turned to the man whose arm was awaiting 
her hand. She flushed deeply. 


152 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

“What is the reason?” he asked. “Not that, of 
course. I should like to understand.” 

“Oh, you would only laugh,” she answered tremu¬ 
lously. She was uncertain of herself—she felt so 
alone. 

“I — laugh at you?” Inderrieden’s eyes were 
grave. 

“It’s just this.” She made effort to speak calmly. 
“I will not wear what I could not earn. Why should 
I ? How dare I ? — when so many are starved of the 
barest needs of life.” 

“I see.” His tone was delicately sympathetic. Yet 
— “What rot!” — he thought. 

But what charm, what individuality there was 
about this woman of moods. He looked towards 
Christian Bronsart, tall, fair, cold of eye, irreproach¬ 
able of temperament — just, logical — oh, the very 
man to set himself like flint against the flame of this 
woman’s poetic, irrational enthusiasms. He smiled 
unseen. 

“Listen! The Melodie in F,” he said. “What mira¬ 
cles Sellon has wrought with that band.” 

“Beautiful!” Band music stirred Aylmer perhaps 
as no other — the witchery of it in the distance played 
tricks with her emotions, and now to-night, with this 
man beside her — this man whose influence upon her 
was so subtle that she had resisted analysis of it — a 
dangerous mood captured her. 

They were sitting for the moment in an alcove 
banked with palms and tail-stalked chrysanthemums; 
she closed her eyes and followed the lilt of the melody 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


153 

with half-sung note — suddenly conscious — appall¬ 
ingly, audaciously, disdainfully conscious — of the ef¬ 
fect of herself upon the man beside her. 

Just for the moment — the brief never-to-be-for- 
given moment — the devil took her to his high moun¬ 
tain and showed her the fair plains over which she 
might have dominion. 

“ Mrs. Bronsart — ’’ 

She rose, her face white as her chiffon gown, for 
Inderrieden had laid his fingers across hers resting on 
the back of a chair, and for the moment she hardly 
breathed; a deadly faintness dulled her eyes. Then she 
came to herself proudly. ‘‘Let us promenade,’’ she 
said calmly. “I see Mr. Boothroyd here. I want to 
speak to him.” 

The rector stood slightly aside from the group to 
which he had been attached — he was watching the 
shifting scenes before him, absorbed. The eager face, 
with its brilliant eyes deeply alight, made an effect so 
living that others about it seemed but blocked from 
the deadness of clay. And the severity of his clerical 
garb gave him such distinction of appearance among 
the gay butterflies surrounding him that Christie 
Bronsart let fall to his son a somewhat sarcastic com¬ 
ment upon the rector’s “damned aristocratic air.” 

“Why, Mrs. Bronsart,” the young man said quick¬ 
ly, “ how glad I am to see you. It’s been such a long 
time.” 

“Yes, we’ve all been away. You have, too, haven’t 
you?” 

A shadow crossed his face. “No, not this summer. 


154 the work of our hands 

You see’^ —they were alone for a moment — ‘‘I’ve 
been looking after Janie Neilson’s boy.” 

“Oh! and you let your vacation go by for that ?” 

“Oh, yes, yes.” His eyes flamed. 

She was silent a moment. Then she said: “And 
have you succeeded in doing anything for him ?” 

“No.” 

“And you’re still trying.?” 

“Trying?” He looked at her. Then forgetting, he 
said deeply: “God, if I might but save that boy!” 

Aylmer felt herself suddenly broken with emotion; 
for a while they watched the shifting throng about 
them without word, but at last the question aching in 
her heart found voice. “Where is Lucy Latimer?” 

He turned his dark gaze upon her. “In a house of 
ill-fame on Mark Street.” His tone bit to the quick. 

“Oh, no, no!” she cried. 

“Where else should she be ?” 

She was silent. But in a moment she broke out upon 
him: “You are cruel. You don’t understand. You 
make no allowance for — ” 

“For disobedience unto the heavenly vision ? No,” 
he answered calmly. “I make none for that.” 

The band played a luring strain, and before them 
the dancers whirled in undulating maze — as long as 
she lived a few notes of that gay valse brought back 
the clutch of pain to Aylmer’s heart. 

“I know — I know,” she said breathlessly, after 
what seemed a long, long time. Then she saw Von- 
viette approaching. “Will vou tell me the number on 
Mark Street, please ?” 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


155 

He looked at her with eyes grown suddenly tender, 
pitying — as she had never before seen them. ‘‘You 
remember the text” — he spoke so gently — “Whoso 
putteth his hand to the plough — ” 

“Please, the number,” she said, as calm now as he 
had been but a moment before. 

“ Fifty-three.” 

Vonviette was upon them like a whirlwind. “Father 
Boothroyd, you haven’t asked me to dance. I feel neg¬ 
lected — hurt.” 

He smiled vaguely; he was not thinking of this 
child. 

She turned to Aylmer. “ Have you seen Erica Ry- 
mal ? She’s here — with us, you know. She arrived 
this afternoon — direct from Paris. I think Maternal 
has asked her to spend the winter with us. I’m sure of 
it because of the extreme pains she is taking to im¬ 
press upon me that she has done nothing of the sort. 
It’s quite maddening. My only hope is that she’ll flirt 
with Papa Bronsart, and thus worry Maternal as she 
deserves. Really, parents are a terrible responsibility. 
It’s a dark day for the unsuspecting infant who ac¬ 
quires them.” 

Aylmer passed on; the rest of the night went over 
her head as a dream. She saw Erica Rymal dancing 
with her husband, and when she met them, she smiled 
upon her radiantly; her thoughts were elsewhere. 

“Oh, Mrs. Bronsart, how perfectly sweet, isn’t it ?” 
Miss Rymal did not explain what. “You’re quite the 
sensation, aren’t you ?” 

“Am I really?” There stirred in Aylmer the old 


156 THE' WORK* OF OUR HANDS 

passionate contempt of this siren-mannered woman, 
so striking in her amber gown, with strings of topazes 
upon the white neck, above which her delicately mod¬ 
elled head with its clouds of blackest hair rose queen¬ 
ly — the clear olive face — cut by the scarlet of thin 
lips, and lighted by dark unfathomable eyes, which had 
a trick purposely overdone by a very clever woman, of 
vanishing under white eyelids, marvellously lashed — 
had lost nothing of its former capricious charm. 

‘‘Yes, you’ve changed stupendously, haven’t you 
really ?” 

“Have I ? And you. Miss Rymal 

Later, as the long night grew longer, Aylmer dis¬ 
covered herself wishing with all her soul that Erica 
Rymal’s visit had happened at other moment than 
this. 

“Aylmer, aren’t you tired.? — Dear!'* There was 
unconscious entreaty in Christian’s voice — he was 
suffering, for it seemed to him that again, as it had 
been in the summer, his wife was dangerously im¬ 
provident of her sweetness. He longed to pick her up 
and fly with her far from this cursed ball, where she 
belonged to the eyes of all men. But there was the 
band again, swaying into a melody gay, and yet of a 
haunting pathos, and Inderrieden at her elbow: “Our 
dance, I think, Mrs. Bronsart ?” 

“What a charming man, isn’t he drawled Miss 
Rymal to Christian, “and quite devoted, isn’t it so .?” 

Night had grown old in the sky when Aylmer and 
her husband stepped across the threshold of their 
quiet house. 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS I57 

“Aylmer!” cried Christian as the heavy door 
closed out the world beyond. 

“No, no, not to-night,” she said swiftly. “I can’t 
talk to you. I’m too tired. To-morrow — to-morrow 
there is something that / want to say to you.” 

The short night ended early for Christian; at his 
usual hour he was ready for breakfast. But when he 
was half-way down the staircase, he paused — went 
back, and stepped lightly into his wife’s room. She 
was heavily asleep; he stood and watched her, his 
stern young face breaking into tenderness. She lay 
with her head pillowed on the delicately modelled 
arm, from which the wide lace sleeve had fallen back 
almost to the shoulder. The line of her throat losing 
itself in the curves of the young figure which lay so 
gracefully straight under the coverlet, thrilled him — 
it was so infinitely pure. And in her face there was 
such marvel of innocence — awe fastened upon him 
as he looked. 

Mystery of mysteries — Holy of holies — of such 
was his wife to him in this moment of silence. A man’s 
wife — his child! 

But when he met Aylmer at luncheon she made it 
difficult for him to recall the morning’s vision. He 
could not know that it was the nerving of herself to a 
momentous resolve, coupled with the woman’s fear of 
the man, her husband, that rendered her so cold. 

“There is something I am going to do, Christian,” 
she said, to all appearance calmly. “You remember 
Lucy Latimer ? — lam going to bring her here if she 
will come.” 


158 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

“Lucy Latimer 

“Yes. You remember. The girl who used to be in 
your office. Mr. Boothroyd told us about her.’’ 

“That girlHe looked at her. “What did you say 
you were going to do ?” It seemed impossible that his 
sense of hearing could be dealing justly by him. 

“I am going to bring her here, Christian. I do not 
wish to do so, however, without first telling you.” 

He pushed back his chair from the table — yet he 
remained silent. 

“It only came to me last night what I must do for 
her — I should have known long ago. I was too sel¬ 
fish to know.” Aylmer was speaking rapidly now — 
nervously; her hands bitten into each other. 

“You mean that you intend to bring a depraved 
girl into this house — under the same roof with my 
wife ?” 

“Yes, that is what I mean.” 

Christian waited a moment. Then he said steadily: 
“I think not.” 

Aylmer rose from the table. “I have told you what 
I mean to do.” 

“Aylmer, I do not understand. Please explain your¬ 
self to me.” 

“There is nothing to explain,” she said with a ges¬ 
ture of weariness. “You refuse to understand me, 
Christian, I have told you before that I do not want to 
live — I will not live — a life of which last night was 
an example. Listen!” She picked up a book lying on 
the table beside her — “I have been reading this. This 
is what a man who ought to know says about us — 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS I59 

US. — ‘I have very seldom found a high development 
of the spiritual life in very rich people; the environ¬ 
ment of flattery in which the very wealthy live is 
death to it.’ And this, Christian: ‘It is perhaps hard 
for us to understand how completely these rich men 
are wrapped up in their financial schemes; how their 
whole nervous force and intellectual power is concen¬ 
trated there; how it is almost impossible for them to 
take a wide vision and see things as they really are. 
They are bound to look at everything from a financial 
point of view. The dangerous men are not the masses; 
but often the men we know and dine with; the men 
prominent in religious and philanthropic enterprises 
who are all the time trying to buy something 
that the law does not allow to be bought and 
that enlightened public opinion knows to be wrong. 
These are the men who do not trust the people 
— men who are always trying to do something 
that the law does not quite allow— it may be 
a good and advisable thing, or it may be some¬ 
thing unworthy and bad — but their scheming for 
it is in any case bad. They are doing dangerous 
work.’” 

Aylmer paused a moment; then she said: “You see, 
Christian, there we are. And you know that the rea¬ 
son Mr. Boothroyd — Oh, I am certain of it — the 
reason he holds aloof from the new hospital enterprise 
is because he knows” — she stopped suddenly — she 
had nearly said a bitter thing, but she had been think¬ 
ing of her father. 

Christian still said nothing — in the moment of a 


l6o THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

crisis, and to him this was indeed one, his mind 
worked slowly towards climax of emotion. 

Aylmer turned over a page or two. “Listen to this: 

— ‘On the other hand, I have found the lives of the 
working people full of stimulus and full of inspiration. 
Church people are often ignorant of what seems to me 
very important in the whole movement among the 
poor people; that in their struggle with capital there is 
not simply an individual struggle, but there is a con¬ 
stant struggle to lift the whole class. There is a strong 
class feeling among them of a worthier kind than the 
class feeling of which I have spoken among the rich. 
The class feeling among the rich is distinctly limiting 

— even harmful — I cannot think of instances where 
it helps and broadens; it tends to make the class 
smaller; less democratic and less patriotic, because it 
surrounds them with a vicious atmosphere; whereas 
class feeling among the poor has an opposite effect. 
It has a great regard for the under-dog.’” 

Aylmer stopped again: “Christian — the under¬ 
dog — don’t you see that for me, that is Lucy Lati¬ 
mer ?” 

But Christian made no answer; he was looking out 
of the window as if interested in what he saw — de¬ 
terminedly cool. 

Aylmer turned back to the book, and finished the 
paragraph. “‘There is a quality there of self-sacri¬ 
fice; a willingness to sacrifice personal interest for 
the building up of the number which is very 
valuable.’” 

“Is there?” exclaimed Christian in sudden irre- 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS l6l 

pressible sneer. “Among the union leaders — the 
walking delegates, the agitators, for instance 

The colour rose in Aylmer’s face; she turned an¬ 
other page and read in a voice shaken by emotion — 
“‘I know it can be said that there are instances where 
walking delegates take bribes; but on the whole I can 
give more instances of fine self-denial in the lives of 
labour leaders. I have personally known many of 
these men, and I have known them to cut their sala¬ 
ries almost in half in order to advance the cause for 
which they were working, and for which they are 
already insufficiently paid.’” 

She read silently over the page the story of the little 
mother ending in the sentence: “How worthless and 
meaningless our own lives often seem when contrasted 
with such lifelong heroism! People do not realize what 
such a struggle means — it was superb.” 

Aylmer went over — laid her hand on her hus¬ 
band’s shoulder. “Christian,” she pleaded, “Chris¬ 
tian, cant you see! I come of a long line of stern 
struggling men and women. I need the fight of life, 
the hardship, the self-denial. I am not a negative char¬ 
acter — I am positive, terribly positive. If you cramp 
me down to the life of a butterfly — I have told you 
before — Oh, think of it! — I, with my flaming soul 
might at last learn to live the empty life of a society 
woman, to seek that sort of triumph, to be satisfied 
with it.” 

“You seemed to take to it very kindly last night,” 
he said sarcastically. Yet she had stirred him. “Is it 
then because you are afraid of the dwarfing of your 


i62 the work of our hands 

own character — because you are afraid of your¬ 
self, that you wish to affiliate your energies with so 
revolutionary a mode of life as you seem to 
indicate ?” 

His tone stung; Aylmer flushed — hesitated. Then 
looked at him, straight. 

“Perhaps it is,’’ she said. “I don’t know anything 
about my motives. If you analysed them you would 
probably find that they are not very heroic. I think 
that all I know is that for me salvation lies along one 
road — destruction along the other. I don’t know 
what kind of destruction.” 

“Ah, you might end perhaps by running off with 
Inderrieden.” 

Her face broke into the sweetness of smile. “Not 
while I had Christian. No, dear, the things I should 
do would be so much worse than that. I understand 
quite well how a powerful woman can wreck one man 
after another — let him love her, and return him noth- 
ing — experiment with his costliest emotions — but 
why does a woman ever do such a thingWhy ? The 
answer lies with you men, who have denied her her 
rightful development.” 

“What rot!” exclaimed Christian. “Aylmer, you 
have lost your balance-wheel. Be reasonable. Admit 
that you are perhaps in an abnormal state just now. 
Wait until it passes, and then — then we will see. This 
is not a time for mad experiments.” 

“Not for mad ones — no! But for great ones. This 
of all times, Christian. And you say to me: ‘Wait, 
wait!’ while the soul of that girl sinks deeper and 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 163 

deeper into hell. Oh, my dear, for the sake of my 
child, help me to do the worthy deed now.” 

Of all things that she should have become pos¬ 
sessed of such an idea! — now, when indeed, he had 
no wish to antagonize her. But how could he see what 
she desired as other than impossible I 

“ Listen, Christian, try to realize how I am driven 
— that there is a voice that says to me: ‘Save that 
girl.’ Oh, perhaps I can’t — perhaps it’s too late, but 
Christian, I must try.” 

“It’s Boothroyd,” said Christian desperate. “He 
seems to have a remarkable influence over women —• 
but then any sort of cleric has that. It’s the nature of 
the species — of both species.” 

Aylmer drew herself up. “Mr. Boothroyd knows 
little of me,” she answered proudly. “ I know less of 
him. My ideas are my own. To any one who has 
thought much about these dreadful questions — oh, 
the great one as to what is to be done when I have 
more than I can eat, while another starves — to any 
one who has thought much about all this and who has 
begun to see what might be done, I should seem igno¬ 
rant and stupid enough. And if I were to ask Mr. 
Boothroyd what I ought to do, he would say to me: 
‘That is for you to discover.’ He believes, you see, in 
personal responsibility — in the idea that each one 
must make answer not to an organization, but to his 
own soul. As part of an organization he would ap¬ 
prove of the new hospital, but alone, to himself, he 
knows he cannot.” 

“Why?” asked Christian sharply. He rose and 


164 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

faced her — in a flash she understood that pleading 
would be of no avail — that it was to be war — war 
to the edge of doom between Christian’s will and her 
own in all that concerned those deep, inner longings 
that she had so pathetically made bare to him. 

And her soul rose in high revolt. 

‘‘Why.?” she repeated. “Why.?” — and in that 
moment the memory of her father’s bitter wrong at 
the hands of this man’s father overwhelmed her — 
“because — because” — her eyes were stormy—• 
“ because he knows that it will be built with ill-gotten 
gain.” 

“Ill-gotten .? — Ill-gotten, you say .?” 

“Yes, ill-gotten,” she repeated deliberately. “Built 
by Christie Bronsart, but with John Forsythe’s or 
some other man’s money. I mean that — filched from 
him by fraud — by the notable methods of the mod¬ 
ern highway robber. / mean that’' 


CHAPTER ELEVEN 


OUNG Mrs. Bronsart’s brougham stood in 



front of Number 53 Mark Street. The coach- 


JL man waited, perspiring. What did the mis¬ 
tress mean by vagaries such as these, embarrassing to 
the soul of a respectable coloured man with a wife 
and seven children ! He had felt driven to 
remonstrate. 

“Pardon me, ma’am, I think perhaps you don’t 
know — ” he hesitated, confused. In his eyes Aylmer 
ranked with angels, in whose presence the mention of 
certain things was not possible to a man of refined 
sensibility. 

“ I know,” said Aylmer gently, with a look into his 
black face as sweet as if served to a prince. “It’s terri¬ 
ble, Montgomery, but I must go. There is something 
there for me to do.” 

Shaking his head, but obedient, Montgomery 
climbed to his seat. And now sat there, in front of the 
indescribable plague-spot, affrighted lest unawares 
his honest soul acquire some deadly taint from that 
polluted atmosphere. 

And the young mistress had gone in — in there! 

But it was long past an hour of waiting before she 


l66 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

came out, her face white, and stained with tears. She 
had with her a drooping girl. 

Montgomery drove them rapidly home, his mind 
filled with foreboding. No good could come of this 
kind of thing. 

And surely there came to Aylmer a dread sinking 
of the heart after she had once established Lucy Lati¬ 
mer in her own house. She was appalled at the task 
she had undertaken. She shivered when she recalled 
that terrible place — the very air of it had unnerved 
her — filled her with a deadly fear that prompted her 
to flee and leave the human wreck to its uttermost de¬ 
struction. Why should she defile her white hand with 
this most loathsome of all pitch 

It had called for the utmost delicacy of resource, the 
utmost passion of entreaty to win the girl’s consent to 
leave the life to which she had thrown herself in her 
desperate reaction against all that had once been 
sweet and true in herself. “Let me travel quick — to 
hell!” that was all that she asked now of Fate. 

But with her arms about her, Aylmer had at last 
conquered. Tears overcame her at the remembrance 
of the supreme moment. “ Lucy, you belong to me and 
to God. He has asked me to save you, and I must do 
it.” But now that she had the girl actually in her pos¬ 
session, she was staggered by the difficulty of the en¬ 
terprise upon which she found herself embarked. She 
felt deplorably in need of advice and help; there was 
no one to whom she would make appeal for encour¬ 
agement. And day by day the gulf between herself and 
Christian widened. 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 167 

“Christian, why don’t you make Erica Rymal let 
Aylmer alone ?” asked Vonviette hotly one evening. 

“Let Aylmer alone?” Christian stiffened. 

“Oh, yes. You know perfectly well that she’s al¬ 
ways sticking pins in Aylmer with her hateful little 
remarks and insinuations. She gives people all sorts of 
mean impressions. Well, I’d stop her if I were you. 
You could, you know.” 

For Christian was seeing a great deal of Erica Ry¬ 
mal. But he was as yet not in the least conscious of 
how cleverly she was ministering to his dissatisfaction 
with his wife, nor how adroit were those innocent gen¬ 
eralizations which in his mind became at once per¬ 
sonal to Aylmer. She never forgot that Christian 
might have married her; it had now become her in¬ 
tention that he should remember that fact with 
interest. 

And so, without the least determination towards 
disloyalty, Christian absorbed the impression that he 
was misunderstood, underrated, and that Aylmer was 
wilfully bent upon thwarting him. Day by day it be¬ 
came clearer to him that great principles were at stake 
in this difference of opinion between himself and his 
wife. If he granted to her such enormous independ¬ 
ence of conscience as she demanded as her right, he 
foresaw in the future no such unanimity of opinion as 
was his right in the home. There of all places a man’s 
will should prevail unquestioned. 

Yet to-day in spite of his severely expressed coun¬ 
termand, there was established under his roof this girl 
of depraved character. It was incredible. He felt 


l68 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

humiliated when his father, who had caught various 
delicately spiced remarks of Miss Rymal’s in regard 
to the matter, asked him about it. He outlined the sit¬ 
uation briefly. 

Christie Bronsart smiled whimsically, but sat for a 
long time considering. He understood more than his 
son was aware of. At last he said: ‘‘Of course, it’s the 
Forsythe working out. You must expect that. But I 
think you’re a little hard on her.” 

“Me.^ — hard on Aylmer?” Christian’s jaw set 
with a snap. 

“Oh, yes, my boy, yes. When you’re twenty years 
older you’ll wonder what you kicked up such a 
mighty dust about. If I were you I think I’d be pretty 
considerate of that wife of mine these days. There 
might come a time when you’d be almighty glad to 
remember that you had been. I’m not so dead set my¬ 
self on a man’s rights as most men seem to be. It ap¬ 
pears to me that the home is the place where the 
woman has every call to expect to have the say-so. 
And if a man’s married the kind of woman that isn’t 
fit to have it, that’s a bill against him that he will have 
to pay as regularly as his water-tax. But you didn’t 
marry that kind of woman. You married a woman 
that your boy may be everlastingly glad some day to 
have had for a mother, and you can bet your last 
nickel that Aylmer Bronsart’s the kind of woman that 
will never have an insignificant son. Now you’d just 
better face it that you’ve got to pay a big price for 
privileges like that. Or what you’ll be damn fool 
enough to think a big price — now. Lord, the men!” 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 169 

Bronsart threw back his head and laughed. ‘‘Men 
don’t care about admitting it, but we know that when 
we’ve married a woman we feel in our souls that we’ve 
bought her, and that it’s her business to suit. See here, 
if Aylmer spent thousands of dollars to-morrow on 
some social foolishness, why, you’d pay the bill, and 
feel rather proud of her, too. But because she saw a 
chance to do something for another woman, and had 
sense enough to realize that there was only one way of 
going at it — ” 

“Yes, but what a thing for her to want to do,” pro¬ 
tested Christian. “And to bring a girl like that into 
the house!” 

Christie Bronsart puffed at his cigar a moment. 
Then he said: “How we love to lie to ourselves. Your 
wife, my boy, meets socially any number of men who 
are responsible for the making of just that sort of girl. 
You see we know the fellow in the case, and when he 
proposes to my daughter, and she says: ‘Go to the 
devil!’ that jars me badly, because I want to buy up 
that eighth interest he holds with Grindley in the Blue 
Phoenix and beat them out of a big thing, and in the 
meantime it would have suited me to have my daugh¬ 
ter polite to him. We’re just a damned immoral lot all 
round when you get down to it. We’re shocked at that 
girl — Oh my! but it’s: ‘Hello, Kent! You going 
my way?’ Pshaw! The girl’s bad, my boy, but the 
man’s ‘naughty.’ That’s the distinction we make. It’s 
a devilish one.” 

Bronsart got up and looked for his hat and coat. 
“I’m going to meet my wife at the Art Institute. She 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


170 

don’t care any more about pictures than a hen does, 
but it’s the thing to go and gush over a gallon of green 
paint worried on to a yard of inoffensive canvas. Oh, 
she’s to be there, in a gown warranted to knock spots 
off any other woman’s, and I’ll have to stand around 
with her, or she’ll figure herself out as a disgraced and 
abandoned wife. Say, Christian!” 

“Well ?” Christian’s tone was uninviting. 

Bronsart hesitated. “That Erica Rymal’s a pretty 
slick pussy, isn’t she ? I tell you the way she purrs 
around a man makes a copy of the Ten Command¬ 
ments in his vest pocket almost a necessity. So long!” 

“Now, have I been a D. F. of the worst order ?” he 
asked of himself as he walked quickly away from the 
office. “Guess I have. Sure! But what’s a parent to do 
when he sees his offspring making a blamed ass of it¬ 
self? Why, sit still and wear a pleased expression if 
you’re a philosopher, and if you aren’t — well, then 
you haven’t any business owning offspring.” 

A carriage rolled rapidly towards him. “Hello! 
Aylmer and the girl! Gee, she’s got nerve!” 

He held up his hand to stop Montgomery. “A 
favour, daughter Aylmer,” he said in his most charm¬ 
ing manner. “Drive me to the Art Institute, please.” 

“Ah, you’re going there. There are a few beautiful 
pictures.” 

“Yes, but I go merely as an accessory to an ex¬ 
hibit. You understand ?” 

Aylmer laughed. 

“It’s a great privilege to be permitted to pay the 
bills of an enterprising woman. I might get lazy and 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS I71 

have visions of retiring from business if it wasn’t for 
that, you know.” 

“Yes,” said Aylmer reflectively. “Have you heard 
about Mrs. Tom Elliot?” 

“No. What?” 

“Oh, since he’s failed she says she’s forced to get a 
divorce — that of course it’s manifestly impossible 
for him to support her.” 

“I see. She must have clothes — always been used 
to ’em. But who’s waiting to sign cheques for 
her?” 

“I don’t think she has decided yet. She has several 
aspirants under consideration. Naturally it’s very try¬ 
ing to a high-spirited woman to have a husband turn 
out as Tom has, and she will need to exercise great 
wisdom in selecting his successor.” 

“The little—!” Bronsart pulled himself up in 
time. “And Tom Elliot was one of the best and 
straightest boys that ever walked. And that high- 
stepper of his was the daughter of a blacksmith at 
Gaylard. Poor Tom! When he married her he thought 
he’d picked the sweetest wild rose that ever bloomed 
in a hedge. Say, I’m glad you told me this. I’ll look 
Tom up. But he’s got to let that wife go if he’s ever 
going to do anything. You won’t come in with me? 
No?” 

Aylmer drove on, her heart suddenly tender. Yes, 
he might be a frivolous, an unprincipled man, but one 
must make allowance. He had had a terrible fight up, 
and had come naturally to put the emphasis upon the 
thing for which he had had to fight hardest. At this 



172 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

moment she wished that she had spoken less bitterly 
to Christian. 

With the approach of winter she had had to decide 
what to do with John Stroud. On the whole her gar¬ 
den had been an amazing success. Many of the neigh¬ 
bourhood boys occupied their spare moments at work 
in it, and were now each night tenderly covering cher¬ 
ished plants from the frost in order to preserve the 
bloom as long as might be. But what with the coming 
of the winter, was to take the place of the garden 
How were these people to be ministered to by beauty 
during the long months when they were shut in to the 
squalor of their homes ? She grew to feel in these 
days a frightened helplessness before the force of the 
ideals which, uninvited, entered in and took such 
mighty possession of her. She realized that to her hus¬ 
band she must seem as if actuated by the most calcu¬ 
lating malevolence of plan; in reality she but obeyed 
the inspiration which seemed not to be granted, but to 
be imposed upon her. She was a piece upon a vast un¬ 
comprehended board — the Great Finger indicated 
hei next move and she took it, submissive. 

‘‘Christian, is there nothing I can do?” she asked 
one day, when the longing for the old tender intimacy 
overwhelmed her. “I am so tired of being unhappy.” 

For the moment his heart melted to her. Then the 
memory of a light sneer of Erica Rymal's stung him. 
His clear blue eyes froze; his jaw squared uncompro¬ 
misingly. 

“My dear,” he said with a finely calm air, “you 
still keep that objectionable girl in the house, I be- 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 173 

lieve ? — and you still retain the flattering opin¬ 
ion you honoured me with in regard to the 
Bronsarts 

Aylmer’s head lifted. ‘‘If you can show me that 
your firm dealt otherwise by my father than I stated, I 
shall be glad.” 

“Really, I am not interested in defending my 
father. It was merely a question of course, as to which 
was the better business man. My father happened to 
be, I have always understood.” 

Aylmer’s face crimsoned. “You know that was not 
so. You know that was never the question for a mo¬ 
ment. Your father is not primarily a business man at 
all. He is — ” she hesitated. 

“Oh, please go on.” 

“No, I will not. But as a business man, my 
father — ” 

“My dear,” interrupted Christian, “I admit that as 
a business man your father possesses conspicuous 
ability. We have found him most useful to us.” 

The tone itself was sufficient; Aylmer walked out 
of the room. 

A week or two later Christie Bronsart, returning 
from a trip into the country in regard to some prop¬ 
erty he thought of buying, met his son driving with 
Miss Rymal. 

“Damn!” he said to himself after he had passed 
them with a gay word of greeting. “Damn! That’s a 
blow below the belt, Christie. And what are you going 
to do about it? If that boy was only twenty years 


174 the work of our hands 

younger Td take him home and just everlastingly lick 
some sense into him/’ 

But the next day he went straight to Aylmer. It 
appears to me I’m taking things mighty seriously,” he 
reflected in some amazement at finding himself acting 
thus. For in spite of his vast scheming and anxiety of 
enterprise he had the optimistic temperament of the 
gambler and he had been a successful one; care, since 
his youth had sat but lightly upon him. 

But he had spent thirty years of life in acute ob¬ 
servation of men and women, and in his memory he 
harboured some appalling instances of the weakness of 
his fellows. There was Colbert,” he mused as he 
walked along: ‘‘who’d have believed he’d go to hell 
over a woman ? And Elfring — and Davis, the finest 
kind of human machine ever set going, and what good 
was the quality of his works to him when it came to 
the struggle ^ He went to pieces over a girl as coarse as 
crash, and was proud of it.” 

He sat down beside Aylmer with a beguilingly con¬ 
fidential air. ‘‘You see, it’s like this,” he began 
frankly. “I didn’t sleep last night worrying about you 
and the boy. Something isn’t right, my dear, and I 
just thought I’d come over and see what we could do 
about it.” 

Aylmer drew back. “How do you come to think 
something isn’t right ? Has Christian been talking to 
you?” 

“No. I talked to him. I couldn’t get any satisfaction 
out of him, though. There seem to be some things 
Christian won’t talk about even to his father.” 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 1 75 

Aylmer picked up her work; her lip quivered. 

“You see, my dear, between two young people of 
such decided characters as you and Christian I don’t 
think there’s anything out of the way in a pretty 
strong difference of view at times. Now I don’t agree 
with Christian in his attitude about this girl — in 
fact, I think he’s acting like a blame fool.” 

“Ah, but the girl is not the question,” said Aylmer 
quickly. The desire to defend Christian — to make 
out a good showing for him against herself, arose in 
her instantly. 

“Oh, there’s something else then } Well, I’m glad 
of it. I hated to think I had a son who was fool enough 
to let a little thing like that come between himself and 
his wife.” 

Then Bronsart waited, watching her. 

But Aylmer sat unresponsive, and so he spoke 
again. 

“You see it’s a curious thing what a trifle will some¬ 
times seriously disturb a man’s point of view, and 
while you know better than any one else how com¬ 
pletely my boy has been wrapped up in you — ” 

Aylmer faced him. “What are you talking about ? 
What do you mean ?” 

Bronsart considered; then he said in a casual tone 
as he examined the delicate carving on a paper-knife: 
“A man’s such a fool about women, you know. He’s 
always hankering after their sympathy — sending out 
feelers for it. And if he doesn’t get it where he thinks 
he has a right to expect it — got this in Rome, didn’t 
you } — No ? — Geneva ? — let me see, what was I 



THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


176 

saying ? — Oh, well, a man’s a fool every time — yes 
— and by-and-by — just look at the fineness of that 
bit — Oh, he’ll begin to look around elsewhere for 
what he’s hankering after.” 

Bronsart laid the knife back on the table — he 
feared he might drop it — he was so horribly con¬ 
scious of the shock which passed through Aylmer. 
Presently he got up and walked over to the window, 
and looked out on the lawn where Hillman was raking 
the fallen leaves*. “You’ve got the best lawn in the 
city. Mine can’t touch it. I wish I knew Hillman’s 
trick with grass.” 

He sauntered back to his seat, and then Aylmer 
looked up at him. 

“But not a man like Christian,” she said steadily. 

Bronsart breathed more easily; he dreaded scenes 
with women, having had some serious ones in his 
time. 

“Listen, my dear,” he said gently. “It took me 
years of my life to learn that it always pays to tell a 
woman the truth — most women, that is. Men don’t 
believe that. They’ll work thirty-six hours a day in¬ 
venting lies to tell a woman and think they’re smart. 
Now I came here this morning to tell you the truth. 
I’m uneasy about that boy of mine. It wouldn’t matter 
about his little differences of opinion with you. That 
kind of thing settles itself naturally enough if you give 
it time. But marriage is a mighty exclusive affair. It 
will never do to let another woman undertake to make 
your husband think well of himself. That’s your busi¬ 
ness first, last, and always.” 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS I77 

‘‘But Christian — ’’Aylmer was stormed from her 
self-control at last. “Oh, how can you say such 
things ? A man like Christian — why, Christian cares 
for me! No other woman could make him happy. 
Christian! — why, he wouldn’t let another woman do 
that.” 

“My dear, that would be all right if the situation 
depended on Christian. But it doesn’t. It depends on 
the other woman every time. That’s the mistake a 
wife always makes. She thinks her husband’s loyalty 
to her must hold him. It would — if there wasn’t the 
other woman. A man’s loyalty to his wife and hers to 
him holds them both through a damned lot of uninter¬ 
esting experience. But you let a man get a feeling of 
alienation from his wife, and then let another woman 
appear on the scene and begin to work on his emotions 
with every power she’s got — and — and — well, I 
guess that’s why I’m here this morning.” 

“Oh, how — how dare you say such things to 
me!” Aylmer’s eyes were in a blaze — she stood with 
her hands clasped tight before her as if the impulse to 
strike were almost more than she could resist. “And 
you think — you dare to think that a woman like — 
like — ” 

“Yes, a woman like Erica Rymal,” suggested 
Bronsart in still the easiest tone. “She’s the very mis¬ 
chief, you see. I met her driving with Christian away 
out on the Harrison road yesterday.” 

“You met Christian — on the Harrison road — 
with — Erica Rymal ?” The flame in Aylmer’s eyes 
died into a dull haze. 


178 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

“Oh, yes. But I wouldn’t worry about that. It’s 
only that we wouldn’t care about their falling into that 
kind of habit. That’s all. Oh, yes, I felt a little hot 
about it myself last night — you see, I know the girl 
pretty well — and I said to Mrs. Bronsart after I got 
home: ‘Look here, it seems to me you don’t seem in 
the best of sorts lately. You need a change of air. Sup¬ 
pose you and Vonviette go south for a while.’ I wanted 
to shake Miss Rymal — she’s stayed in this town 
about long enough to suit me. Well, you could have 
knocked me down when my wife said: ‘Why, yes, I 
think I’ll go, and isn’t it fortunate that Erica is going 
to board with the Sterrits — she says she wants to 
study with Mr. James, and she couldn’t think of im¬ 
posing so much noise on us.’” Bronsart was silent a 
moment; then he added: “You see the girl has laid 
her plans. She knows just what she’s after.” 

Aylmer looked at him; the pain in her eyes gripped 
him hard. 

“Child, I almost think if I were you I’d be inclined 
to make some concessions. After all, life’s a great sys¬ 
tem of compromise, and it’s a wise one who knows 
when to give up what’s perhaps a right. That girl now 

— Oh, I approve of what you’ve done, but I’d think it 
over, my dear. It’s a question whether it’s a wife’s 
duty to alienate her husband for the sake of doing 
good to somebody else, isn’t it ? You might be able to 
devise some other way of taking care of the girl.” 

“Yes.” Aylmer hesitated; she was terribly shaken 

— more than she had yet had time to realize. “But 
you see” —with what kindly anxiety her father-in- 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 179 

law was looking at her — how good he meant to be — 
“as I told you, the girl is not the main difficulty/’ 

“Oh no, no! So you said. Then Tm all out of my 
depth.” He paused. “Of course you may not feel able 
to tell me what the trouble is then, but if you could — 
perhaps — ” 

Afterwards Aylmer wondered how she could have 
been guilty of such a thing. But at the moment her 
mental confusion was extreme, and this man was so 
sane, so hardily philosophical — she had never 
thought of him as sensitive. 

She looked towards him — helpless, appealing. 

“Why, it’s about you. We had an argument — 
Christian and I — about — about things that hap¬ 
pened long ago — and I think — I think I called you 
a highway robber. Yes, I did.” 

There was a frightening silence. Then: “The devil 
you did!” said Bronsart. His lips scarcely moved. 
Then slowly, his face hardened — hardened until all 
the shrewd cynical, bitter lines which the conflict with 
life had etched so indelibly upon it revealed them¬ 
selves — sharp, unmerciful lines. 

“The devil you did!” he said again even more 
quietly than before. The red grew deep in his face. 

Then he got up. “Really, I must apologize for 
having intruded upon you in this way. It was 
quite unnecessary, wasn’t it ? I will not transgress 
again.” 

He bowed formally, and went towards the door, 
and Aylmer watched him helplessly, stricken wan 
with the feeling that she was being deserted by the 


l8o THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

only friend she had. What had she done ? Why — an 
impossible thing! 

But at the door Christie Bronsart paused. Then he 
walked over to the window, and looked out again at 
Hillman, still monotonously raking leaves as if noth¬ 
ing had happened. A great struggle began in him. 
The red faded from his face; it grew white. 

But the moment came when he turned back to Ayl¬ 
mer. ‘‘Child,” he said in a strange tone as he laid his 
hand on her shoulder, “you’ve given me one of the 
sharpest stabs I’ve ever had. I’m glad of it. To me, it 
helps a little to even the score. But we’ll let that pass. 
You’re my boy’s wife. I came here to-day to help you 
both, and I won’t let any feeling of mine stand in the 
way if I can help it.” 

A great wave of emotion passed over Aylmer, and 
left her trembling. 

“I’d be a fool, child, a poor fool if I let what — 
what you said come between me and what I should do 
for you two children. There’s your father — he’s got a 
great celestial scheme that uses up lots of time and 
money for keeping himself righteous. I haven’t, you 
see. I don’t have to get myself all worked up into a 
state of emotion in order to understand that you’re a 
fool if you do some things, and a wise man if you 
don’t. Now, of course, you can monkey around with 
this situation and lash yourself into all kinds of expe¬ 
riences over it, and all that. But there is only one con¬ 
clusion for you to come to, and in the end you’ll come 
to it. But if you take my advice, Aylmer, you won’t 
waste time just now.” 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS l8l 

‘‘You mean — ’’ 

“Simply this. You’ve offended my boy. Just go to 
him and say that you take back what you said about 
his father — his father, remember.” 

Aylmer sprang to her feet. “Never!” she exclaimed. 
“I will never do that.” 

Bronsart eyed her steadily. “You’re a fool, Aylmer, 
when you talk like that. Take it back. Take it back.” 

Her indignation choked her. “I — take that back ^ 
— that you ruined my poor honourable father — that 
you — ” 

Bronsart held up his hand. “Not from you to me, 
Aylmer.” There was an admirable dignity in his 
manner. 

He had been interestedly aware of himself as incon¬ 
gruously feminine and unmasculinely intuitive during 
this interview. But he had long ago learned to value 
jealously those moments in which he found nothing 
escaping him — they were the great moments to 
which he owed the inspiration of some of his most dar¬ 
ing schemes — of his subtlest plots. A problem always 
interested him, and this one happened to concern him. 
He would have regarded the present crisis as unim¬ 
portant if he had not been intimately acquainted with 
the nature of the stock from which Aylmer sprang. 
“Once let these people get a thing into their heads as 
a matter of conscience and you’re fixed,” he reflected. 

Furthermore, there was to be considered the stock 
from which his son sprang. He was not sure that it 
was not more dangerous in this present emergency 
than the other. He was aware of certain tragic weak- 


182 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

nesses in his own character which had carried him 
close to the pit’s edge more than once — which would 
have carried him over it, but for the stern training of 
his youth which came to the top in him at unexpected 
times. But his son had lacked all that — there had 
been no influence to lay the firm foundation upon 
which the man must some day feel his feet or sweep 
with the current. 

And to-day, for his boy, he had infinite fear of the 
current. He was a philosopher of a high order, and a 
successful man largely because he had learned early 
to take people as they were — he had never made the 
mistake of trying to manipulate them as creatures of 
his imagining. And it was one of his pet theories that 
it was not nearly as important to know a man’s weak 
points, as to be certain you comprehended his strong 
ones. But for his boy — Ah, how he feared the weak 
spot he knew so well in himself. 

“ Listen, my dear,” he now said gently to Aylmer. 
“ I know much more than you ever can about the way 
I treated your father. It was the great mistake of my 
life. I suppose every man, even the wisest, looking 
back, can put his finger on some dark spot in his 
memory. That is my dark spot. I would give a great 
deal to wipe it out. When you married Christian I 
thought that would do it for me. But lately I have 
wondered pretty anxiously whether the big wrongs we 
do are ever atoned for without violence somewhere — 
it may be upon the innocent.” 

‘‘Why, you — you — I did not know you ever 
thought like that,” faltered Aylmer. 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


183 

What he had said touched her deeply as a confes¬ 
sion unlooked for from such a source — impelled 
from him by the position she had taken. She was un¬ 
conscious of herself as in the hands of a man who had 
spent his life manipulating his fellows. And he had 
never felt it more important that he should manipu¬ 
late with skill than just now. 

The line in himself between the real and the as¬ 
sumed was obscure even to Christie Bronsart. He was 
seeking a certain end — automatically now he helped 
himself to whatever means occurred to him as likely 
to assist in its attainment* 

“How could you misunderstand me so!” he said 
simply. 


CHAPTER TWELVE 


B ut you did not expect happiness — what is 
called happiness when you undertook so mo¬ 
mentous a line of duty as this’ ?’ asked Booth- 

royd. 

Aylmer had met him at Mrs. Arkell’s, and had 
offered to drive him uptown. It was a bitter winter 
afternoon — the wind drove in edged through the ill- 
fitting window-sash in the sick woman’s room. 

“Oh, this is dreadful!” exclaimed Aylmer. “I shall 
see that you have a double sash at once.” 

“Oh, Tim’s got one all ready to put up,” said Mrs. 
Arkell quickly. “ He would have had it up yesterday, 
but John Stroud came over for him last night in such 
a stir — the heater wasn’t working right in the green¬ 
house”— Aylmer had at length decided to build a 
large conservatory across the end of her garden lot — 
“and I guess they fussed away there until after mid¬ 
night. When Tim came in at last, I said to him: 
‘Guess you’d rather get froze yourself than see one of 
them plants injured. ’ You know he and Stroud’ve got 
it all planned — Tim’s to carry me over Christmas 
Day to see it, and they’re just working to have every 
thing looking as fine as may be. And just think of it — 

184 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 1 85 

why, I ain’t set foot over my door-step in years.” She 
laughed delightedly. “You see, all last summer I 
could see them flowers just lying here. It was a great 
time for me. And I’ve missed ’em so, my! Flowers is a 
good deal like children I guess, if you once get your 
mind set on ’em.” 

“Happiness!” repeated Aylmer in answer to 
Boothroyd’s question as they drove along. “No, I 
wasn’t seeking that. But — ” she went no further. 

“You see, it’s but a matter of living up to the 
highest one has grasped,” said Boothroyd. “Just from 
day to day.” 

“Yes, but there are complications. Isn’t it perhaps 
selfishness to seek to live your idea of the highest when 
another with a different idea of life might be alienated 
from the best of which they were capable, because 
you — you assumed that yours was the higher ideal 

“Oh, no, no!” exclaimed Boothroyd. “Don’t be 
misled into thinking that. It is the devil’s best argu¬ 
ment — compromise, compromise. Never listen to it.” 

The carriage turned in at the gate. “ Come in with 
me,” said Aylmer. “You’re cold. I’ll give you a cup of 
tea.” 

The warmth of the house was in grateful contrast 
to the bitterness of the snow-smitten air without; the 
soft green of the library a rest to eyes weary from the 
white glare of the wintry streets, and the deepening 
twilight invited speech which under other circum¬ 
stances might have seemed impossible. 

“Compromise — how I loathe it!” said Boothroyd. 

“Ah, yes. But in marriage — it is all different. 


i86 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


Things that hold elsewhere don’t hold there.” Aylmer 
leaned forward and looked at the young man with 
wistful brown eyes. “Do you know — it is so hard — 
to be a woman — satisfactorily to one’s self I mean.” 

An emotion such as he had never before experi¬ 
enced took possession of Boothroyd. 

“Ah, you think perhaps, that I should not have said 
thatAylmer felt embarrassed by a change of feel¬ 
ing which she immediately divined in him. 

“I —oh, no!” he answered somewhat coldly. 

This then — this — was that tension of the nerves 
for which men bartered their common-sense — nay, 
ultimately, their souls if need be. 

“You see,” she continued, her eyes still fixed upon 
him, the soft colour creeping into her cheeks — “a 
man expects his wife to please, to charm him. He mar¬ 
ried her for that. Not at all because she was wise or 
because she was even — good.” 

Ah, yes! a woman’s charm — vague, capricious, in¬ 
tangible, but what a force! 

“And do you see how terrible it is when you feel 
how you would despise yourself if — if — ” but her 
eyes filled with tears. 

“Yes, I see,” he said quietly. His young, dark head 
seemed for all its strange inflexibility of pose to ex¬ 
press at the moment an extraordinary intensity of the 
sheer force of living which lifted it realms above the 
mere condition of being alive. “Yes, I think I under¬ 
stand. You mean that you would despise yourself if 
you used what is finest in you as a means, however de¬ 
sirable the end — if you trafficked, as it were, in what 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 1*87 

should be above all things, spontaneous, divinely free 
from the flaw of calculation, of planned-for result.” 

Aylmer nodded; she could not trust herself to speak. 
This question had become her battle-ground. 

The young man rose. “Oh, never, never do that,” 
he said in low intensity of tone. “Never stain yourself 
by such perjury. Be true to the noblest in you at what¬ 
ever cost. In the end, all else fails.” 

“Yes, but I have done as you say, and I see myself 
losing all — all!” Her voice trailed, ragged, into the 
silence. Yet presently she spoke again, falteringly. 
“And then I think of wiser women than I who have 
held what — what they cared for most — by every 
art, by every stratagem even, and — ” 

“Ah, yes, and one soul is sacrificed for the other,” 
interrupted Boothroyd, suddenly in a blaze — “but 
that other is not thereby saved. Don’t let us deceive 
ourselves as to that. No human being rises to nobility 
of character through any degradation of another — 
not even of a wife — ” but he left that unfinished. 
“Compromise — it is the coward’s road. It is not for 
you to travel.” 

“Ah, I see Vonviette and Miss Rymal coming. 
What shall I do.?” She looked at him in uncon¬ 
scious entreaty. “I don’t know how I can see her 
to-day.” 

But when they came in, she met them in her usual 
manner. 

“Ah, a twilight tete-^-tete, is it not ?” drawled Miss 
Rymal in her charming voice. “Your parochial cares, 
Mr. Boothroyd, they weigh you down, n est-ce pas ? 


1 88 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

One feels sorry for the overworked clergy, don’t you 
think?” 

The young man turned his dark eyes upon her; it 
was what she desired. She was garbed in a long trail¬ 
ing coat of silvery grey velvet, which, with a rather 
magnificent air, she threw back, revealing the softness 
of a chinchilla facing which extended to her feet. Her 
huge picture hat was weighted with enormous grey 
plumes beneath which her cloudy masses of dark hair 
made frame about a face lovely with the colour of a 
peach long warm in the sun. Her dark velvety eyes 
met the rector’s gaze full — then slipped under those 
white narrowing lids whose long lashes gave to her at 
times an enchanting youthfulness and innocence of 
expression. 

“Well,” said Vonviette with a decided breeze in her 
manner, “I don’t know why Father Boothroyd 
shouldn’t pay some attention to the rich and perishing 
of his flock. He’s distressingly attentive to the poor 
and righteous. I’ve a great mind to do a little house¬ 
breaking, or to put up a ‘Scrubbing done here’ sign 
on our front door, in order to command something of 
his attention and regard. That is unless I take the veil, 
which I’ve been considering doing lately.” 

“You!” exclaimed Aylmer. 

“Oh, of course you all smile, but don’t you see that 
really, that is quite the natural thing for me to do ? 
The spoilt child of luxury — the creature of caprice 
— why, it is simply inevitable. Every now and then 
I go down and have a talk about it with Sis¬ 
ter Mary Frances. We’re great chums. Oh, you’ll 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 1 89 

see yet, even if you do sit in the seats of the scornful 
now.” 

“Dear child, don’t talk so,” said Aylmer with a 
tender smile. She was fond of this petulant little sister- 
in-law. 

“By the way, Mrs. Bronsart, will your husband 
have returned before Wednesday ?” asked Boothroyd 
suddenly, after a slight chat with Miss Rymal, in 
which he had impressed her as more polite than 
pleasing. “There is a matter about which it is impor¬ 
tant that I should see him.” 

“Yes — yes, I think so,” replied Aylmer. But there 
was hesitation, embarrassment, in her manner. 

“Oh, pardon me,” said Miss Rymal, in her laziest 
voice, “I think not until Thursday — possibly Friday 
indeed.” 

There was silence in the twilight room. 

“At least so he said in his letter to me this morn¬ 
ing,” she added. 

For the longing to stab, to cut deep into this proud 
wife, who suffering, made no sign, rose high in her 
envious heart. 

Long ago, as a little dark-eyed cherub of a child, 
she had tormented everything capable of feeling with¬ 
in her reach, from the fly whose legs it had been her 
delight slowly to remove, to the children who learned 
to shun her as a playmate. “I never knew no 
good come of a pinching child,” an old nurse had 
once said of her. “A pinching child makes a mean 
woman.” 

She pinched with her fingers no longer, but with 


190 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

her tongue, and the men who admired her had flat¬ 
tered her into mistaking insolence for wit. 

To Aylmer, for one dread moment, the world 
stopped on its way through space. Then she turned to 
Vonviette and made some indifferent remark, which 
Boothroyd instantly took up, and the suspended 
sphere swung slowly forward upon its allotted groove 
again. 

But as he said good-bye to her, the rector looked 
steadily at her for a moment. He wished her to know 
that at last he understood. 

Alone in the Bronsart carriage — for Vonviette had 
declared her intention of staying to dinner with Ayl¬ 
mer — the carefully cultivated expression of Erica 
Rymaf s face relaxed — irritation, discontent preyed 
hawk-like upon its rounded youth, and gave shrill sig¬ 
nal of the face of twenty years from now. 

She was not proud of herself. She had stabbed vul¬ 
garly, where she had need but to wound with delicate, 
poisoned weapon. 

What folly! What need to stab at all ? Events would 
do that for her. 

Boothroyd walked rapidly away from the house, his 
mind and heart struggling with Aylmer’s difficulties. 
But at last with determined effort he dismissed her 
from his thoughts. “It’s a great nature seeking the 
light, and it will find it without any help from me. 
And that is the only way. We may be helped towards 
the best, but we must attain — make it our own — 
always alone.” 

“Alone!” — he repeated the word as if he loved it. 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS IQI 

In truth he did. It was a temperament that uncon¬ 
sciously deceived. In his pulpit, among his people — 
down in the festering alleys where children swarmed 
about him, he gave the impression of a nature warm, 
companionable, close to the human kind. In his ser¬ 
mons, in his tender homely speech to outcast souls, he 
seemed to give of his very heart. In reality the deeps 
of him were hardly stirred by the life about him, 
which seemed to make such demand upon his emo¬ 
tions. The man within lived a life closed to the passer¬ 
by, which only gave hint of its existence in the prayers 
— those extraordinary extempore prayers, just before 
his sermon — which moved men without their under¬ 
standing why. Beneath the mask of youth with its 
eyes so keen upon the world of men and things, the 
soul of the born ascetic, of the mystic, ruled mightily 
thus soon. For him the great note had been struck 
with no uncertain sound. 

“ But suffering — suffering — ’’a man said to him 
one day — a man upon whom from Boothroyd’s point 
of view a cruel wound should have made noble scar — 
‘‘you idealize it — apotheosize it — your theories of 
life are founded upon it. It’s a morbid way of looking 
at things.” 

“Do you call me morbid?” retorted Boothroyd. 
“ Do you know a man who gets more, honestly more 
out of life than I do ?” 

Yet it would have puzzled him to prove the truth — 
even to himself — of that statement. For he was so 
often conscious of himself as passing through life an 
alien — of belonging elsewhere — a mental condition 


192 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

which was incidentally an enormous source of power 
to him. A child crying with the cold stirred something 
in him — he was never sure what — he soothed it and 
went on his way battling with the ever-present — the 
great question: What did it matter, cold or heat, pain 
Or pleasure, agony or ecstasy ? — and then stopped on 
the next corner to try to bring a smile to some weary 
woman’s face. 

Perhaps his bishop had grasped the complexities of 
his character as nearly as any one ever would. “To 
himself he will analyse everything, but to his people 
he will analyse nothing — explain nothing. It is a 
powerful stand to take. And he will ‘compel them to 
come in’ by the force of a temperament which has led 
every great spiritual movement the world has ever 
known. If he lives he will be the greatest ecclesiastic 
this country has produced. He will set religion back 
upon a rock — but what rock ? Ah! will he know ?” 

And the bishop had looked long at the young face, 
the young figure, with its glow, its throb of rich red 
life. “And what white intensity, what passion for sac¬ 
rifice, renunciation, and beneath all, what amazing 
indifference, what coldness, what slight, curious strain 
of cruelty — the qualities which always lie deep in the 
characters which accomplish. Tact ? — almost the 
most needful ingredient in the daily round of the ec¬ 
clesiastical calling. No, he has none. It is the light¬ 
weights in brain who need that. This boy will ride 
roughshod to his goal — he will command the right of 
way.” 

When Boothroyd reached the place which served 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS I93 

him as a home, he found a letter lying on his study 
table. He opened it to read, scrawled on a half sheet: 
“That girl has got him again.’’ 

“Oh, God!” he sighed; a breath of agony passed 
over his face. 

What passion of endeavour he was putting into the 
saving of that boy! Why .? 

He considered; and slowly, critically separating one 
motive from another, he perceived that the redemp¬ 
tion of this life had become to him the great test of his 
fitness for his calling. He had no faith in the systems 
which undertook the salvation of humanity by ma¬ 
chine — a gross at a time. The results of that theory 
might be statistically fascinating, but there, from his 
point of view their utility ceased. 

Ah! — to take this boy, son of a common, ignorant 
mother, of an unknown father — this boy upon whom 
foreordination to sin, to final destruction seemed 
stamped — to help this mortal to put on the immor¬ 
tality of righteousness — to return him to the great 
Judge, pure, incorruptible, redeemed! 

Who could predict the worth, the infinite value to 
its fellows, of one life thus uplifted ? 

But was the cheap stuff worth the saving ? 

Had the Master asked that question before He 
stooped from immeasurable height to heal ? 

The streets were treacherous with sleet, and when 
he stepped out after hurrying through his evening 
meal, he boarded a car going in the direction of the 
church, where there was to be a vestry meeting which 
it was expected he would attend. He sat through its 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


194 

tedious trivialities with indilFerence, but towards the 
close of the hour he began to be aware that things 
were being said which indirectly concerned him. In¬ 
deed, it occurred to him after some listening, that the 
tone of the meeting was distinctly hostile to the plans 
of the present administration. 

There was Bronsart — smiling, alert, silent — yet 
by gesture delicately deprecatory when Wardrope 
spoke of their church as in danger of “vulgarisation 
by the mob.’’ 

After that, Boothroyd sat straight. Was this, then, 
the beginning of a definitely concerted movement 
against him, inspired by Bronsart, who would prob¬ 
ably never appear in it — who would merely direct 
unseen its every manoeuvre 

Well, it was but what he had to expect. But his 
heart grew sore. He looked sharply at the faces of the 
men about him — keen, prosperous men of the world. 
These were the directors of an enterprise which had 
for its aim the spiritual uplift of humanity. 

What knew they of that vision of the soul which 
alone gave greatness to life — which transformed 
poverty into riches, sorrow into joy, greed into gener¬ 
osity, hatred into love.? 

A divine pity filled his heart and found voice upon 
his lips in the prayer with which he was called on to 
close the meeting. “O Christ, why dost Thou reveal 
Thyself to but one here and another there, in all Thy 
great world ? Is there not enough of Thy truth for all.? 
Nay, Lord. We beseech Thee to make Thyself known 
unto us all. Thou Christ who sought and saved that 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS I95 

which was lost, outcast, despised — Thou Christ who 
companioned with sinners, who fed with the bread of 
life the multitude whom Thy disciples would have 
turned from Thee an-hungered/' 

But it was a prayer destined not to be overlooked 
by some of the saints who heard it. As Mr. Wardrope 
said: “Such abuse demanded explanation—apology.’’ 

But Boothroyd heard nothing of this; he hurried 
away, those few scrawled words on the half sheet up¬ 
permost in his mind again. He took the car for that 
section of the city which lay low along the river’s edge; 
then he walked up and down peering into this saloon 
and that — watching, scrutinizing every figure that 
slouched along the squalid street, brilliantly lighted 
just here by the alluring dens which lined it. He knew 
the boy’s possible haunts well. 

“I suppose you haven’t seen Neilson to-night.?” 
he asked of the policeman on the beat — they had 
had many a midnight talk together. 

“Passed me ’long about twenty minutes ago, sir. 
Had that Andre girl with him. Guess you’d find them 
at Breitmann’s.” 

Boothroyd nodded, and went on. 

Inside the dazzlingly lighted room he paused a mo¬ 
ment, until his quick eye located Neilson, sitting with 
the girl at one of the little round tables at the far end. 
As he strode towards them many men and most wo¬ 
men turned to look at him; it was a figure not to be 
ignored in that environment. 

“Neilson,” he said quietly — he bowed courteously 
to the boy’s companion — “may I join you ?” 


196 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

He beckoned to the waiter and ordered a glass of 
beer. 

Neilson’s face flamed scarlet. But the girl tossed her 
head. “Honoured, Tm sure,’’ she said pertly. 

Boothroyd drank his beer slowly with a careful air 
of preoccupation while he furtively studied “the An¬ 
dre girl.” 

She was dangerously pretty — a daintily graceful 
brunette with an acquired complexion of charming 
pallor, the effect of which she had heightened by the 
narrow, straight, intensely black line of eyebrow, and 
the vivid scarlet of her lips. She was clothed with a 
skill which betrayed the artist, a view of herself which 
Boothroyd reflected would probably have filled her 
with amazement if not contempt. Yet there the gift 
was, going to waste — no, being prostituted in an 
awful cause. He looked at her hands — delicate, 
white, wicked little hands. 

And then suddenly, he became aware that she was 
studying him; perhaps with her cheap, tragic knowl¬ 
edge of the frailty of men she was wondering if he, too, 
were not vulnerable. 

And in the moment, she tossed her head again, and 
laughed softly. It was a laugh to remember. 

“My girl, you’re wrong,” he said. 

“Well, did you ever!” she exclaimed. Then threw 
him a defiant, sparkling look. 

For he was but another man; the men she knew 
well and by whom she judged all were those who 
courted temptation. 

Boothroyd’s courage almost failed him. This was 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS I97 

no slow-witted siren who had got her clutch upon the 
boy. It was a little devil, born and trained in the pit, 
who would exhaust every expedient of her vile art be¬ 
fore she let go of such choice young prey. And the boy 
— he was so clearly proud of himself — so eager to be 
the clay for this relentless potter’s misshaping — so 
intoxicated by the hideous charm he had neither 
years, nor knowledge, nor will to analyse. 

Was his delirium strange when one reflected what 
dark secrets those thin red lips could reveal of the dis¬ 
honour of men of middle age, whose families regarded 
them as protectors of feminine excellence ? 

The stream of life was so young in these veins; was 
it wonder that to-night, under such stress, it flowed 
hot, turbid ? 

Neilson beckoned to the waiter — he ordered more 
beer. And Boothroyd waited, his heart sick with con¬ 
tempt of himself, of his cowardice, of his lack of 
resource. 

Suddenly, he leaned over. “Neilson,” he said in 
a curiously still voice — he was listening to his 
own heart beat — “I want you to come home with 
me.” 

Neilson looked at him, his face a blaze of defiance. 
“I’ll trouble you, sir, to mind your own business.” 

“This is my business,” said Boothroyd, still in the 
same tone. “I shall not leave you to-night. If you do 
not come with me, I shall go with you.” 

Instinctively, he turned towards the girl. An irra¬ 
tional feeling overpowered him, that surely she, a 
woman, with somewhere in her poor body a woman’s 



198 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

soul, must understand that this tormented boy must 
be held back from destruction. 

She met his eyes squarely. ‘‘I hate you,’’ she said in 
a tone as quiet as his own. Then she stood up. ‘‘Come 
on, Dick, let’s go.” 

She had sudden dread of a scene; she had too much 
respect for herself to stand that. 

She walked out quickly. When the two men reached 
the street, she was nowhere in sight. With an oath 
Neilson turned upon the rector, then as quickly 
turned away. But Boothroyd’s hand was upon his 
arm — a grasp as of steel. “ Let me go,” panted the 
boy. 

Boothroyd tightened his hold. 

“Damn you!” Neilson wrenched this way and 
that; it seemed as if his muscles cracked and split. 
But at last Boothroyd pinned him exhausted against 
the sleety wall. “Dick, you’re going home with me, 
boy. If I can’t persuade you to do that, I must force 
you to it. For you must go.” 

Hours later, in the chill deeps of the night, he sat 
beside the lad asleep upon his own bed, and looked 
long at the young face upon which innocence was still 
unobliterated. What was to save him .? — to give him 
strength to fight the awful forces of his nature.? 

Yet beneath all the weakness inherited and ac¬ 
quired, there was something strong, something which 
struggled after righteousness within the boy. Again 
and again he had touched it to-night; he was sure of 
it. “My poor Dick! my poor Dick!” he murmured. 
In the fierce duel of that night he had learnt much 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS I99 

about Neilson, and he studied now in critical appre¬ 
ciation, the head with its dark, crisply curling hair, 
the fine sweep of the brow, the thin line of jaw, at once 
so weak and so strong — the mouth with its restless, 
clever lips. Ah, this boy’s mother had given him life, 
but he did not belong to her. Where did he belong ^ 
What human being, careless of catastrophe, had set 
this priceless freight adrift upon the uncharted storms 
and passions of life ? A mighty tenderness welled up 
in Boothroyd’s heart. 

Somewhere in life the boy’s father went his un¬ 
troubled way, a credit to society mayhap, but never¬ 
theless, a soul fattening in flesh for hell. He had 
purged his heart, belike, of the sins and follies of his 
youth, but this boy was to bear the bitter fruits of 
them about with him as long as life endured. The 
sacredness of human life! — there was nothing so 
vilely profaned by man. 

The woman! — it was the great question, the final 
test, before which every man must, sooner or later, 
stand or fall. The boy here, quivering and moaning 
in his uneasy sleep, gave evidence, even in uncon¬ 
sciousness, of the power which mastered — made 
fools of — however legally and morally, about six 
men out of every ten. 

He thought of Erica Rymal — Ah, the difference 
between her and “the Andre girl” was but that of 
circumstance — the heart of one was no more de¬ 
praved than that of the other. 

In this still hour the problem of righteous judgment 
perplexed him as never before. Who dare lay claim to 


200 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

clean hands and a pure heart ? What tamt of vulgar 
ambition lurked hidden in noblest attainment ? The 
martyr, dying at the stake, how often had he gloried 
in the obstinacy which crowned him with endurance ? 
And how often had the hero been, but for accident of 
fate, a coward ? 

Ah, there came to him at last swift vision of Aylmer, 
as he had looked upon her that afternoon when she 
had appealed to him, her tender brown eyes wistful —• 
everything about her, from the softness of her heavy 
hair, the pathetic twist of her lip, her little trick of 
slipping the rings up and down her slender fingers; 
the faint perfume, the teasing rustle of her silken 
skirts, the slim, daintily shod foot — every delicate, 
unconscious grace of hers a joy to the soul of man, and 
a menace to its peace. 

He had seen so much of her — had watched so un¬ 
suspected her long struggle to gain possession of her 
soul — had rejoiced with a joy she was never to know 
aught of, in that nobility of character which refused 
happiness at the cost of honour — and now, to-night, 
he saw already before him the parting of his way with 
hers. 

Perhaps because of that, because, too, of the weari¬ 
ness of soul and body unnerving him, he gave way as 
never before to the clamour of his heart for the deli¬ 
rium of dream, for the envisioning of all that was 
denied to him. 

But no! not for him — not for him. For him the 
lonely road, the silence of unshared pilgrimage, the 
heartsickness of uncheered toil. 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 201 

So be it! It was the road that he chose. Were toil, 
loneliness, the ache of the unsatisfied heart not in 
very essence the ingredients of those priceless fruits 
of the spirit — Joy, Peace ? 

The boy beside him moaned; he laid his hand ten¬ 
derly, strongly, on the hot, restless head. 

^‘Oh, Dick, Dick,” he murmured, ‘T can, I can — 
I will save you, boy.” 

He knew it, for in that high moment, he surren¬ 
dered himself, ‘‘ obedient unto the heavenly vision.” 


CHAPTER THIRTEEN 


F orsythe looked at his daughter in the calm¬ 
ness of great amazement. 

‘'And, my dear, you mean to tell me that 
you actually defied your husband — that you brought 
into his house a girl whom he had forbidden you to 
bring there 

The colour rose in Aylmer’s face. “Then have I no 
rights, dad ?” 

“ Rights, my dear, rights ? Is that a word to use ? 
As a wife, can you — ” 

“Ah, don’t think of me always as a wife, dad. 
Think of me as an individual — as the woman Ayl¬ 
mer — has she no right of judgment, no right of duty 
to herself — to the needs she understands in herself as 
no one else can ?” 

“My dear, I don’t think you realize how selfish 
what you say sounds. I do not understand how you 
can possibly place your idea of duty to yourself, what¬ 
ever that may mean, against your evident duty to your 
husband.” 

“But, dad, there is no question at all for any hu¬ 
man being when it concerns that of duty, save duty to 
himself. Don’t you see what I mean ?” 


201 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 203 

Forsythe shook his head. '‘My dear, all I do see, is 
that you have been a very foolish girl — a very wilful 
girl.” 

Tears sprang to Aylmer’s eyes. It was bitter to her 
that her father, of all others, should deny to her all in¬ 
dependence, all right of judgment — all part in the 
great thinking machinery which moulds human 
action. 

But after a while she said with a new note in her 
voice: ''Dad, suppose that the question at issue be¬ 
tween me and Christian should have been one that 
concerned my religious belief — suppose for in¬ 
stance that I had found it impossible to give up the 
Presbyterian faith in which I was reared — would 
you have said that I then, had no right of judgment, 
no duty to my own conscience ?” 

There was no hesitation in Forsythe’s reply. "That 
is an entirely different matter, as you know. Religion 
is a question between the soul and God. No one may 
interfere there.” 

"But the question is, dad, what is religion?” 

Forsythe looked sharply at his daughter. "My dear, 
I quite understand where you would drive this argu¬ 
ment. It won’t do. Religion and philanthropy are not 
one and the same thing, though it is the fashion now¬ 
adays to pretend that they are. A fancy dress ball is a 
much pleasanter pastime to those who are at enmity 
with God than a prayer-meeting, and when it can be 
made to masquerade as a means of doing good, peo¬ 
ple whose consciences are not quite dead, feel much 
relieved. But God is not mocked. And you, in a way 


204 the work of our hands 

that astonishes me, are magnifying your mere wilful¬ 
ness into a matter of conscience. I do not say that the 
reformation of a sinful girl is not a worthy endeavour, 
but it becomes most unworthy when persisted in, in 
defiance of your husband’s desires.” 

There was silence until Aylmer said in a low tone: 
“What a degrading thing then, it is to be a woman!” 

“Aylmer!” protested her father, shocked. 

“No, I will alter that remark.” She looked at her 
father with eyes that flamed. “What a degraded 
thing, you and the men who think like you would 
make a woman. No, dad, you must let me talk. I am 
your child; I have heard Sincerity say, time and 
again, that in every way I was more like you than like 
my mother. And what is it that marks you out among 
men ? Your clear brain, your strong will, your fine 
conscience. You know that. And those qualities you 
have handed on to me. You know that, too. But be¬ 
cause your child happens to be a woman, because she 
is a wife, she must not use her great gifts of mind and 
conscience and will — she must subordinate them to 
the will and the mind and the conscience of the man 
whose name she bears. Why ?” 

Forsythe looked at his daughter without answering. 

“I have considered that ‘Why a long time,” con¬ 
tinued Aylmer. “And I have never got a satisfactory 
answer to it. The answer that it is my duty as a wife 
is no answer. Why is it my duty as a wife ? Because it 
is a wife’s duty to please, to minister to her husband’s 
self-content, to his self-esteem, to his sense of author¬ 
ity. Why ? Because she is the wife and he the husband. 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


205 


Do you see ? — one gets no farther. It always comes 
back to that, and it won’t do. Think of me, dad” — 
she threw her head back — in spite of his anger his 
old heart beat with sudden pride in her, in her noble 
youth, her undaunted independence — “think of me, 
a woman with ‘a heart aflame to be right,’ to do jus¬ 
tice as far as I can see how, to the poor, the afflicted, 
the outcast — a woman who craves the hardships of 
service — a woman who longs to feel that her day 
and generation shall know a little less suffering, a lit¬ 
tle less loneliness, because she has lived in it — think 
of me, all that, and then think of me, told to live a life 
of ease, of parade, of social brilliance — because — 
because it is my duty as a wife.” The contempt in her 
voice scorched. Yet the next moment she was in a pas¬ 
sion of tears. “And you think, perhaps, because I say 
all this, that I don’t love Christian. Don’t you see — 
can’t you see, that it is because I love him so dearly 
that I know that it can never be a service to the best in 
him, the noblest, that I should degrade myself by de¬ 
ceitful subservience to him, that I should for the sake 
of the peace that I long for, pretend to him that I be¬ 
lieve what I do not.” 

“Child, child, how recklessly you court misery. 
You have a haughty spirit. It is that I fear which 
keeps you from seeing, how like a wise woman, by the 
exercise of a little tact, you might get what most wom¬ 
en get — your own way.” 

“Oh, dad, dad, don’t you understand that it is just 
that, that I should hate,” exclaimed Aylmer, throw¬ 
ing out her hands in a hopeless gesture. “A wise 


2 o6 the work of our hands 

woman ? I shall never be that. I despise the tact you 
speak of. It makes women cowards and deceivers. I 
am not selfishly seeking my own way. Can’t you see 
that.?” 

“No, I can’t,” said Forsythe abruptly. “I see a 
headstrong girl, throwing away the advantages and 
gifts of a great position — alienating her husband, 
and stirring up opposition in his mind, doubtless, to 
much that he would otherwise approve of.” 

Aylmer sat silent; she was deeply offended. She 
would never have mentioned her difficulties with 
Christian to her father — the knowledge had reached 
him at last from other sources — but often, in her 
loneliness and sadness, she had comforted herself with 
the thought that if he knew he would understand and 
sympathize. 

And now — she felt sudden contempt for that 
faith of his, so isolated from the stern facts of life, so 
spiritually superior to its common griefs. In this short 
hour, a great gulf had sprung between her and her 
father; across it she looked at him for the first time in 
her experience with the cold eyes of the critic. 

“Perhaps as you know so much now, I had better 
tell you as I told Mr. Bronsart, that the great diffi¬ 
culty between Christian and myself arose originally 
not so much over Lucy, as over what I said about that 
old affair between yourself and him.” She could not 
resist the temptation to make her father perceive that 
the question at issue was not altogether a personal 
one — that it was practically the case of Forsythe vs. 
Bronsart. 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 207 

“What?” exclaimed Forsythe. The very mention 
by his daughter of that hidden anguish, that unre¬ 
deemed humiliation, cast the shadow of added years 
upon his strong face. “What do you know of that ?” 

“Everything, I should think,” answered Aylmer 
calmly. 

“And you told Bronsart — you told him that you 
knew ?” 

“I told him,” she went on in the same tone, “that 
I had called him to my husband a thief, a common 
highwayman.” 

The strong old hands resting on the arms of the 
chair shook; a fierce light flamed for an instant in For¬ 
sythe’s eyes. “You told him that, my daughter? — 
you told Christie Bronsart that ?” It was impossible 
to suppress the passionate note of exaltation. 

“Yes. That.” 

There was a long silence. Then Forsythe said in a 
voice that trembled: “Oh, it was cruel — it was cruel. 
It killed your mother. They ruined my life, and there 
was so much room for us both. Neither was taking a 
living from the other. But they had to have it all — 
all — even her life.” 

Aylmer’s face paled. “How I hate it!” she said as if 
to herself. 

“Hate what?” 

“The name — the very name of Bronsart.” 

Her father looked at her in consternation. “ But it is 
your name.” 

“Oh, no, no! I am called that, but my name is For¬ 
sythe— Forsythe. How I love it! How I love the 


2 o8 the work of our hands 

blood” — she pushed back her sleeve — ‘‘the blood 
which flows in my veins, good, clear, honest blood.” 

“Aylmer!” A terror of this mystery of inherited 
hate overwhelmed Forsythe. How happened it, here 
in this child of his, before whom, even in those far-oflF 
years when the passion and bitterness of defeat were 
yet raw in his heart, he had never suffered the men¬ 
tion of his great wrong “You must not talk like that, 
Aylmer,” he said weakly. 

But the great deeps were in the storm. “ I— a 
Bronsart ?” She held herself high. “No, never! Don’t 
you know — don’t you know, dad, that I’m not the 
stuff of which Bronsarts are made.^” 

And then in misery, despair, at the sound upon her 
lips of such bitterness against what was dearest to her 
in life, the helpless tears came again. 

Forsythe had often heard men boast, as though they 
considered that they had peculiar cause for pride in 
such knowledge, that they knew women — meaning 
invariably thereby that they knew what a poor lot 
they were. For himself, he was quite conscious that he 
knew very little about women, for he had experienced 
but his wife, and he remembered her from those dis¬ 
tant days of his strong, successful, arbitrary young 
manhood, a marvel of womanly tenderness, unsel¬ 
fishness, unquestioning devotion. 

But had she always been that in the silence when 
her soul spoke truth to itself.? Had she ever known 
moments of doubt, of alienation, of revolt ? 

For this was her daughter! 

He knew no little foolish, comforting ways — he sat 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 20 g 

beside his child, silent, in depths of perplexity, and 
longed as he had never longed since her death, for the 
mother who would surely have found a way for them 
all out of this great tangle. And Aylmer felt that if she 
could but have sobbed out her hurts on his strong 
shoulder, she might have found a moment’s balm for 
this cruel, constant ache. 

“My dear, let us have a few words of prayer to¬ 
gether,” said Forsythe at length. “ It was the only path 
to peace — some day the child would find it so.” 

But Aylmer’s soul was in storm. Prayer now— 
when she was in such stress She felt contempt for the 
weakness which sought such easy soothing. 

She sat long musing after her father was gone, and 
again and again in the twilight darkness which she 
loved, she repeated to herself: — 

“To be Thyself is thyself to slay; 

Or, lest thou follow not what I say, 

Let being thyself be thus expressed: 

*Tis to wear God’s thought of thee as thy crest. ” 

Was she seeking to do that ? Was she ? 

She thought long and narrowly. 

For in spite of all that she had said to her father, 
she had that rare pride of temper which courts defeat 
for its own point of view, if it can be but convincingly 
achieved. 

The next morning as she was shopping in town, she 
went into the jeweller’s with her watch which needed 
some slight repair. The man who waited upon her was 
effusive in attention, and as she turned to go, he haz- 


210 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


arded: ‘‘Excuse me, Mrs. Bronsart, but I should like 
to know if the bracelet pleased you. Mr. Bronsart was 
so particular to have what he thought you would 
like.^^ 

“The bracelet?” For an instant Aylmer looked 
at the clerk with baffled eyes. Then she rallied 
proudly. “Oh, yes, yes. It was very pretty. Good¬ 
morning.” 

The carriage was waiting for her at the further cor¬ 
ner, and as she walked up the street towards it, feeling 
curiously dazed — piteously uncertain of the next 
step — she came face to face with her husband and 
Erica Rymal. She bowed — she thought she even 
smiled. Why, she must — she must. One did not cry 
aloud in the street, because one’s heart felt like — 
like this! 

Beside the carriage she found Christie Bronsart 
waiting for her. “Well, my dear,” he said kindly, “I 
was passing and saw the carriage and asked Mont¬ 
gomery where you were, and thought Fd wait a min¬ 
ute to have a word with you. Who let you out such a 
cold morning as this ?” 

He had seen his son and Erica pass, and knew that 
she had met them; he was not deceived by her smile. 

“You go home quick, like a good girl,” he added 
lightly. “ I don’t like you out in weather as rough as 
this.” 

Then he shut the door and was gone; he saw that 
she could not bear another word. 

But after a moment or two alone, she sat straight 
again, her face suddenly calm. Ah, all these things 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 211 

must wait, now. The day of reckoning was her due; it 
would come. 

She looked steadily out of the window, seeking to 
feel herself calm and interested in the world without; 
as the carriage turned a corner her attention was 
caught by the figures of a man and a girl standing 
back from the street, close into the wall of one of the 
big buildings, as if courting shelter from the wind 
while they talked. No — she was not mistaken — she 
knew no other girl with such distinctive grace of 
line. 

Instantly she stopped the carriage and stepped out. 
“Just a moment, Montgomery.” But she paused, her 
hand still on the door. She felt such weakness — such 
palpitating fear of the strange wickedness of life. She 
had made this girl’s struggle her own, but what was 
the good of the battle ? And why should she fight it for 
another, with certain defeat in sight ? She was sick of 
it all. 

But a moment more, and resolute as ever, she 
crossed the street. 

“Lucy,” she said gently, as she touched the girl’s 
arm — “Lucy, I am waiting for you.” 

Kent had seen her coming, and had immediately 
assumed a casual air; now, with a polite lifting of his 
hat, he went on his easy way. 

Once safe again with her charge beside her in the 
carriage, Aylmer leaned back for a few moments with 
her eyes closed. Then she drew near to the girl, who 
drooped as far away from her as possible. 

“Lucy, my child, what am I to do with you ?” 


212 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

Miserable tears filled Lucy’s eyes. ‘‘I don’t know,” 
she said brokenly, “I don’t know.” 

“When have you seen him before ?” 

“Oh, not since I told you I wouldn’t. I haven’t — I 
haven’t. And this time I met him — I didn’t try to see 
him. Oh, yes, I did — I did — I knew he would have 
to come this way to his lunch. And now it’s all begun 
again — the ache, and the longing — Oh, don’t you 
know — ” 

Aylmer took the girl’s hands tightly in hers, the 
misery of her own sorrows for the time blotted out. 

“You see, now. I’m all afraid again.” There was 
the horror of despair in the young eyes. “ Because — 
because I shall go back to him. I shall — I know it. I 
can’t keep away. And what can you do — what can 
you do to keep me away from him 

“What can we do repeated Aylmer. “Child, this 
will be a great time for us to find out.” 

For now the courage of a vast anger possessed her. 
Was this child, one of the fairest of things created, to 
be sacrificed as mere moth to this flame ? 

Not while love, and pity, and patience were hers to 
serve another’s desperate need. 

The power of the man! — generations of women 
behind this girl had felt it and been slaves to it, be¬ 
cause it was their “duty” as wives and daughters to 
be so. And now came this daughter of a long line of 
women cursed with the inheritance of weakened will, 
with no weapon save that of fear to face the fight. 

They sat through the long afternoon together, busy 
with dainty needlework, at which Lucy had proved 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


213 

herself clever. But Aylmer noticed that the girl’s eyes 
were ever wandering to the window — the pretty 
room was to her a prison. And at last with a passion¬ 
ate exclamation she jumped up. “I can’t sit still any 
longer,” she said wildly, “I want to go out. I must. I 
must see him again. I can’t bear it. You don’t know 
anything about it.’ ” 

“Lucy, Lucy!” entreated Aylmer. 

“Just let me go — such a little while. There’s a 
place where I can watch him — when he leaves the 
office — he won’t see me. I just want to look at him.” 

“No, no, Lucy. No. Remember all that it was 
before.” 

“All that it was beforeIt was heaven.” 

“Heaven on Mark Street, Lucy.?” asked Aylmer 
sadly. “And you know that what went before took 
you there.” 

“I know — I know.” The girl’s eyes streamed with 
tears. “That was hell — hell. I said to him this morn¬ 
ing that I wondered he would speak to me.” 

“Lucy — you said that ? Oh, child, child!” 

“But he said he didn’t care — that he loved me 
in spite of it, and that he knew I was straight 
now.” 

Aylmer could have wept. For as she looked at Lucy, 
she realized that the girl’s innate sweetness and 
charm were more evident to the beholder than ever 
before — the quiet life, the freedom from excitement, 
from fear and humiliation had restored to her the 
freshness and youth that for a time she had lost, to 
which there was added now a subtle fascination, the 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


214 

deadly fragrance of experiences which yield but poi¬ 
soned bloom. 

And the man Kent — Aylmer felt suddenly faint — 
had been conscious that morning of all this, and be¬ 
cause she was again so fair a flower for destruction, 
“forgave’’ her! 

The hour passed while Aylmer exhausted argument 
and entreaty, though she knew that at times Lucy 
hardly listened to her. For in truth the girl’s ears were 
open now but to the cry which had slipped from her 
lover’s lips as he turned from her that morning: 
“Sweetheart, you know that I’ll be waiting for you — 
you know that I’ll be waiting for you.” 

Yet at length, because of her very weakness from 
the struggle, Lucy submitted. She took up her work 
again, and for the time, at least, Aylmer was sure that 
she was safe. 

Then wearied to the point of collapse herself, she 
was summoned to receive Mrs. Bronsart. 

“ My dear Aylmer, now I know you’ve been mop¬ 
ing, haven’t you } Well, who can wonder at that. I’m 
sure! I know that you quite agree with me, that it’s a 
most unpleasant — a most unnecessary way of — 
well, you know what I mean, dear. I always did tell 
Mr. Bronsart that.” 

“Yes, but there seems very little choice as to ways,” 
remarked Aylmer. 

“That’s just it, my dear. You’re always so quick to 
catch one’s meaning. Now, Vonviette — Oh, Vonvi- 
ette, my dear, is so different, and not becoming other¬ 
wise. In fact, she’s not in the least the domestic treas- 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 215 

ure that the devoted motherhood she has known has 
every reason to demand. Of course, I can’t always ex¬ 
pect to remain as young as I am now — it wouldn’t 
be reasonable, would it, dear Aylmer, though how I 
shall ever look the part of a really middle-aged wo¬ 
man I can’t imagine, can you ? But that doesn’t in the 
least matter, does it ^ — Oh, nothing does that con¬ 
cerns me — I am coming more and more to compre¬ 
hend that, though I am afraid, dreadfully afraid, 
from what I hear, dear — but there! we won’t say 
anything about that, will we ? — you poor dear! But 
Bronsart men, my dear!” —the gesture of this wife 
of one of them implied that she had known scores of 
them intimately, and felt equal scorn for them all — 
“Bronsart men! well. I’m thankful at least I was 
never the mother of one of them, not that I would 
seem to suggest, dear Aylmer, that it will be any dis¬ 
grace to you — Oh, no! You see that is one of the 
ways of Providence that we have to put up with as 
yet — and I daresay Christian will be immensely 
proud, you know — and as for my husband — really, 
he’s so fond of you — I never understand that, be¬ 
cause you’re not in the least alike are you ^ — well, of 
course it will annoy him undoubtedly to be a grand¬ 
father at first — I’ve always noticed that about men 
— but I’m sure he will forgive you in time, dear.” 

Aylmer began to laugh — perhaps as an inevitable 
reaction from the day’s sorrow; indeed, she felt 
hysterical. 

“There now! that’s how I like to see you,” said 
Mrs. Bronsart approvingly. “I often say to Von- 


2 i6 the work of our hands 

viette that it’s a pleasure to talk to you — you 
appreciate one so. And so few people do appreciate 
each other as they should. There’s Mr. Booth- 
royd — my dear, he has been a bitter disappoint¬ 
ment to me.” 

“Mr. Boothroyd? Why, I thought you were de¬ 
voted to him.” 

“My dear, I was. I put it to you candidly — could 
I have been more so ? But now I can hardly bear to 
think of my devotion to him without tears. It was the 
most charming thing. But he has quenched it — ut¬ 
terly quenched it, I might say without exaggeration.” 

“ But how ? That sounds so ruthless,” Aylmer 
barely managed to say. 

“Ruthless! My dear! But we won’t talk about him. 
It is quite too recent a grief to discuss. It’s a sad ex¬ 
ample of the idol thrown from the altar. Most un¬ 
pleasant.” 

“Why, yes, for the idol.” 

“My dear, not at all. That is the very bone of my 
bitterness. The idol stalks abroad regardless — would 
much rather not be on an altar, thank you! But we 
were talking about Vonviette, I think, my dear Ayl¬ 
mer. I really feel greatly disturbed about her. I’m 
growing so afraid that what I’ve always suspected is 
really true — I fear that my sweet Vonviette is as like 
that cantankerous old grandmother of hers as two 
peas. A man ought really to be so — so careful of — 
of—” 

“ Of his grandmothers,” suggested Aylmer. 

Mrs. Bronsart laughed gaily. “Dear, you are so 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 217 

witty. Yes, yes. That’s the very idea I was groping 
after. It’s really the most unwise thing to get the 
wrong kind of grandmother in a family. Because 
there’s no possible way of ever getting her out again. 
Now, no one need tell me that that Von Viet woman 
was not a hawk — a veritable hawk. And you can see 
that characteristics like that are very uncomfortable 
to have to keep handing on to innocent children 
whether you wish to or not. You may be sure that 
dreadful old person will get in her licks every time in 
the family make-up — my dear, I consider that a 
most repulsive phrase, and I never make use of such 
expressions unless I’m simply driven to them by the 
exigency of circumstances, and so I repeat that she 
will keep on getting in her licks in the family make-up 
until the end of time. She will always be a most ob¬ 
jectionable feature. I look ahead, my dear, and I see 
plenty of kicks coming in our family history, and you 
can’t persuade me that they won’t all come from that 
most uncomfortable and most persistent old woman.” 

“What particularly objectionable feature in the 
family countenance do you attribute to her?” 
Aylmer^ * 

“Oh, my dear, it’s far too general to be classified. 
But at present in my poor Vonviette it’s taking the 
form of piety, quite the most undesirable, I think.” 

“Piety ? — in Vonviette!” exclaimed Aylmer. 

“I don’t wonder you’re surprised, my dear. It’s 
been a severe shock to me. I think I have said to you 
before, oh, quite emphatically, that I believe in re¬ 
ligion for women — it gives a woman a charm that 


2 i8 the work of our hands 

she really can hardly get in any other way, but, of 
course, I mean religion rightly understood, and held 
properly in check. It's simply the most dangerous 
thing if you get too much of it — I know, because Fve 
suffered tortures with my conscience and all that. 
You couldn't understand, dear — I don't ask that 
you should. But you can see plainly that this frenzy of 
Vonviette's comes straight from that old grandmother 
of hers — of course she was the kind that dissipates in 
piety — positively dissipates. I'm sure there's the 
Bible — Oh, I don't mean that I don't approve of it 
— I do. But still some of the stories in it — well, if 
rightly understood, we know that a French novel 
would be tame in comparison, and yet old tabbies like 
that just sat and pored over it by the hour, and 
thought themselves saints. That's rather like your 
dear father, too, isn't it— and yet such a respectable 
man." 

“My father.?" 

“Why yes, dear. He's quite a kind of concordance 
on a stand. I'm sure. I never see him without getting 
an impression of cherubim and seraphim, and taber¬ 
nacles and burnt offerings, and all that sort of thing." 

“Weren't we talking about Vonviette .?" suggested 
Aylmer, somewhat pointedly. 

“Well, my dear, that's what I've been trying to talk 
about," said Mrs. Bronsart plaintively. “You see it's 
Sister Mary Frances. You don't know her I think, but 
you really should. She was meant to grace a palace 
instead of those most unsightly garments and no hair 
I suppose, which seems a direct flying in the face of 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 219 

Providence, doesn’t it ? when so many people simply 
have to be bald whether they wish to be or not. You 
see, Vonviette has been reading French with her — I 
protested from the very start, and said everything I 
could think of about Rome and the Inquisition and 
thumb-screws — really every time she went I won¬ 
dered whether I should ever see my darling child again. 
Oh, Sister Mary Frances is quite the sweetest thing, 
but naturally a serpent at heart — how could she pos¬ 
sibly be anything else ? Well, I must really be going, 
dear. I feel so much better now that I have opened 
my heart with all its sorrows to you — crucifixes, and 
holy water, and all that you know, and I see that I 
have cheered you up so, too. You look like a different 
creature, but, of course, you must remember that at 
these most unpleasant times even the prettiest woman 
is apt to look plain, so what could you expect, dear ? 
I daresay you’ll be much improved in looks by and 
by. Oh, my dear, here comes that dreadful Mr. 
Boothroyd, I shall have to quite precipitate myself 
away.” 

“ It seems so long since I’ve seen you,” said Aylmer 
to the rector as she shook hands with him. “Do you 
know that it must be weeks 

“Yes, I think I know that,” he answered gravely. 
He looked tired and worn, yet in his eyes there was 
the glow that bespoke the hidden fire unconquerably 
aflame. 

For some moments they sat silent, watching to¬ 
gether the rise and fall of dream pictures in the open 
fire. Then Aylmer said tremulously: “You have had 


220 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


such difficulties lately — I have heard. I suppose 
since Mr. Wardrope and — others — found out that 
you had worked in the shops — well, that made such 
a dreadful stir of course. I was here when Mr. Bron- 
sart told my husband. I have never seen him so bitter. 
He said the shops were ceasing to be their own — 
that they were at the mercy of any salaried spy. I said 
to Christian afterwards: ‘But why should you mind ? 
If you are treating your employees justly what have 
you to fear ?’ He said: ‘It is not a question of justice. 
We are treating them justly, but we are not giving 
them, and never shall, all that they demand. Our bus¬ 
iness would never stand it.’ ” 

“It’s the old argument,” said Boothroyd. “It 
means the profits we demand for ourselves would 
never stand it.” 

“ I know, I said that to Christian. But I don’t argue 
matters like that with him any more. Oh, I’m so sick 
of it all. It seems to me that everything we have has 
come from robbing some one else. Yet my father, even 
my father, does not see this as I do.” 

“You should not expect him to. He belongs to an¬ 
other administration. Besides, he probably now inter¬ 
prets the Bronsart wealth as a sign of direct approval 
of him — of divine favour to him — through his 
daughter.” 

“And that wealth is piling up by such terrible 
means. I have been watching the growing agitation 
about the employment of child labour in the South. 
The Bronsarts are very heavily interested in cotton, I 
believe. I tried to speak of that to Christian, but you 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 221 

see I never can discuss those things wisely and calmly. 
I called it accursed gain. Think of that! I told him 
that I knew that one of our men who has just come 
back from the South, admitted that children worked 
all night and from ten to fourteen hours a day in our 
mills. He said he supposed so — that no one regretted 
that kind of thing more than he did, but that he and 
the men in with him were the slaves of commercial¬ 
ism equally with those children. He said that I spoke 
as though capitalists were little gods, who could ad¬ 
just things on an ideal basis if they only would. Since 
then I have said nothing more.’’ 

“Don’t,” said Boothroyd. “For a while adopt the 
ministry of silence. He knows what you think now, 
and he may be considering these conditions far more 
critically himself than he would at present allow you 
to suspect. Believe that. Have faith in him. It is 
always so easy, too, for us to fall into the error of 
thinking that the interests of the great truths we have 
at heart may be served by thrusting them upon peo¬ 
ple. We develop bitter opposition, and flatter our¬ 
selves that we are doing a great work. We have not yet 
begun to realize how to use the power of peace. You 
have a great opportunity to use that now. Because, 
you see, your husband knows that you have suffered 
— that you are not afraid to suffer for what you be¬ 
lieve. By the way, how is Lucy ? ” 

Aylmer told him the day’s story. He sighed. “Yes. 
It is going to be a fight. And it will be a victory, but 
not yet perhaps. You must remember if failure comes 
again, that what you have done can never be lost. It 


222 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

cannot. But perhaps you are never to see the reward 
of your labours. Perhaps that poor child has yet to win 
salvation through depths of sin greater than any she 
has yet known. But victory will come. Believe in it.’’ 

‘‘What is the matter with you to-day asked Ayl¬ 
mer. “Something is going to happen. I know it. What 
is it?” 

“Well, suppose something is going to happen ? — 
what of it?” He spoke lightly. “Yes, it is true. I 
wanted to tell you first.” 

“You are going away then — I see,” said Aylmer 
quietly. A desolating sense of loneliness to come fell 
upon her. And it had been such a hard day. 

“You must wonder why I should choose to go away 
now, when there seems such need that I should stay. I 
am going because I do indeed believe in the ministry 
of peace. If I go away now every truth that I have 
preached in Weston will remain a witness in the hearts 
of those who have heard it. The sermons that I shall 
be preaching here long after I am gone will do more in 
the service of truth than all I have preached here yet. 
If I remain, I shall disrupt the church. I can do noth¬ 
ing else as things are. One may argue, of course, that 
that might be the best thing that could happen to it, 
but I cannot see it so. I cannot see that a disrupted 
church accomplishes enough of good to counterbal¬ 
ance the ill that is wrought. I shall go, but I shall leave 
the spirit of the truths I have preached behind me to 
do its great work. You will see. There will be a har¬ 
vest and it will be from seed of my planting. But it is 
not for my garnering.” 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 223 

“I see/’ said Aylmer. “Yes, I think you are right.” 
But her lip trembled. 

And Boothroyd looked at her. He wanted to stamp 
her face forever on his memory, just as it was at this 
moment. 

Love ? — it seemed to him that no man had ever 
drunk deeper of its bitter sweetness than he, but he 
was not ashamed of that, for even as he looked upon 
her, he turned the key in the great lock upon all that 
his love might have meant to him and to her that was 
not of the bravest and best. 

A few evenings later as Christian loitered for a rest¬ 
less moment in the library after dinner, Aylmer said 
to him: “Christian, I was in Shield’s on Tuesday. 
And Mr. Pond asked me how I liked my bracelet.” 
She spoke in the quietest voice, but the effort was 
clearly appalling. 

Christian sat silent; a slow red crept into his face. 

“I haven’t thought about much else ever since,” 
continued Aylmer in the same still voice. “ I have suf¬ 
fered so. And now I have to tell you that I know this, 
because somehow it seems to me only fair to you that 
you should know that I know. But it does not appear 
to me” — her voice shook helplessly — “that I can 
ever know a greater agony than the telling of this to 
you is to me.” 

Then without further word, she went away. 

And Christian sat there, in the silence, a long time. 
The “cantankerous old person” to whom his step¬ 
mother so strongly objected had certainly ensured 
to her grandson an inheritance of obstinacy unsus- 


224 the work of our hands 

pected in his easy youth, but proving itself now a dan¬ 
gerous quality of which to have such generous en¬ 
dowment. 

Yet it was quite clear to him that he was behaving 
like a brute to his wife. How could he — Christian — 
possibly act so.? But the next moment he was busy 
justifying himself. 

To think that she knew of that bracelet! He real¬ 
ized that he had bought it in a moment of asinine 
munificence — which moment, as he shrewdly sus¬ 
pected now, had been carefully fostered by Erica, who 
regarded all men as objects of plunder. 

And Aylmer knew of it! Why, of course, it meant 
nothing, but what must she think 

Erica Rymal ? — he was beginning to hate her, 
with her sleek insidious ways. He was tired of be¬ 
ing stroked so persistently the right way. And did 
she, perhaps — could she — actually think that he 
really cared for her 

But Aylmer — why had she forced him to such a 
pass as this ? What had she done with his happiness ? 

She had put everything before him — her outrage¬ 
ous social theories — that girl — why, she was not 
willing to concede anything to his point of view. 

His father.? — ah, yes, that was all true enough in 
a way, but she should never have spoken of it to 
him. 

Ah, but — Aylmer, Aylmer! His heart cried out for 
her, for the vanished joy of their early days together. 
What hideous thing was this, which had happened to 
them ? How could she be so wilful — a woman cap- 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 225 

able of such sweetness, such infinite appeal as Ayl¬ 
mer ? 

Oh, he must — he must go to her ? 

But what could he say ? 

For Aylmer was a proud woman. This wretched 
business of the bracelet would probably be difficult of 
explanation to her, because she herself would be so 
unreasonable. 

Would he then wish her not to care ? 

Ah, had he not acted as he had, because he thought 
it was time for her to learn that a man’s — a hus¬ 
band’s — love had to be held— that it could not 
be lightly put on one side while she concerned 
herself with settling the economic problems of the 
universe. 

Her husband’s love was a woman’s first and 
greatest concern. 

But oh, how sweet, how tormentingly sweet she 
could be when she wished! 

Why, he must go to her — he must straighten out 
this miserable misunderstanding, and help her to see 
things in a clearer, more sensible light. 

What rot! He was no fool — why, he was in no 
position to take the upper hand at the moment. He 
had acted like a — yes, but what made Aylmer go 
away like that ? Why had she not stayed and, at 
least, given him a chance to defend himself. There 
were any number of explanations possible, but no! 
she walked off in that lofty, touch-me-if-you-dare 
manner, and expected him, no doubt, to run after her 
and beg her to come back. 


226 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


He settled down in his chair again. This was not 
a moment to risk mistakes. All their future happiness 
depended on his coolness of judgment now. 

He must think things out calmly, judicially. 


CHAPTER FOURTEEN 


T he Church of the Ascension was crowded to 
the doors, and still in the chill April twilight a 
restless remnant of the throng within surged 
about the entrances. 

“Wonder, after all, how the old guys will like it 
when they get the dull respectable times back again,” 
observed one man to another. “Wardrope may kick 
all he likes, but he’s never been so prominent in his 
life.” 

“Pretty poor way for a man to make a record,” 
said the other gloomily. He belonged to that swarm of 
the unknowns who, according to Wardrope, had as¬ 
sailed with hobnailed boots “ the dignity and sanctity 
of our church edifice.” He was a common, preju¬ 
diced person, ignorant of the value to society of an 
uncontaminated “church edifice.” 

The lights burned low, mere points of blue against 
the dull grey walls; the dimness of coming night 
brooded black-winged among the arches where the 
faint notes of the organ fled as if for refuge from the 
multitude below. The wonderful west window, “sa¬ 
cred to tl;e memory of one of the great among women, 
Hanna Von Viet Bronsart,” was aflame as if the very 

227 


228 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

Sun of Righteousness were shining through it, re¬ 
vealing with striking effect in the uncertain light, the 
sombre brilliance of decoration, the richness of eccle¬ 
siastical blues and reds, the delicate embroidery of 
gold leaf, the intricate beauty of mosaic — the splen¬ 
did simplicity of noble granite column, of finely 
sprung arch. Nothing was lacking in this House of 
God that architectural or artistic ingenuity could 
devise. 

In the high belfry the chimes ceased suddenly their 
sweet medley; a single, silver-toned bell tolled quick 
monotonous note; then paused before it struck sharply 
the thrice repeated three swift strokes. 

As the clear peal died within its echo, Aylmer walk¬ 
ed slowly up the aisle to the Bronsart pew. She had not 
meant to come; at the last moment an uncontrollable 
impulse had mastered her. 

The service, beloved of generations dead and gone, 
began. Like the edifice in which it was rendered, it 
lacked nothing in beauty of finish, perfection of de¬ 
tail. The organ had been built by a master of the 
craft; it had the celestial voicing rarely heard outside 
of a cathedral of the old world. And it was played 
upon by a man who knew nothing, felt nothing, lived 
nothing but notes — he was divinely music-mad. 

Christian Bronsart attended church rarely in the 
evening, but the utterances of the rector were, of late, 
causing such widespread comment, and the tension 
between himself and the officials of the church was 
known to be so severe, that he was not the only man 
of his sort who found himself acutely interested in the 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 229 

possible developments of the situation. Close as he 
was to his father, Christian was quite unable to diag¬ 
nose just how direct was that clever schemer’s re¬ 
sponsibility for the state of tumult at present existing 
in the Church of the Ascension. Wardrope, big 
dough-headed man of millions, had been his catspaw 
in so many enterprises, that he undoubtedly was so 
in this — the determined effort, as yet carefully 
masked, to remove Boothroyd from his position, not 
so much because of what he had done, as because of 
what it was feared he would do. And the fact that 
Bronsart was saying so little while Wardrope was 
doing so much, was conclusive evidence to Christian, 
that the master hand was mixing the dough. He had 
tried to decoy his father into some expression of opin¬ 
ion on the present situation, but Christie Bronsart 
believed in a conspiracy of one — not even to his son 
did he often reveal himself. 

“Wardrope? — Oh, well, you know Wardrope,” 
said Christie smoothly. “He’s all worked up, you see 
— says Boothroyd’s a heretic — doesn’t preach ‘the 
Word’ — better look out if you’re a heretical party, 
and somebody gets after you with what he calls ‘the 
Word.’” 

“But that was the very point Wardrope made 
about Boothroyd before he came — said he preached 
the ‘pure Gospel’ — don’t you remember ?” 

“Yes, but that was a good while ago. Why, I told 
Wardrope myself yesterday that as far as I could 
make out Boothroyd was preaching the Gospel 
straight, and that we’d have to let our houses, and 




230 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

stocks and bonds, and all the rest go pretty soon now. 
Wardrope about had a fit — I wish you could have 
seen him. Why, I argued with him that, as far as I 
could see, the fellow had been a great success — he 
packs the place, and sticks right to his text just as he 
said he would when he came. ’’ 

“Yet his preaching — Oh, you know it's directly 
antagonistic to — to us. ” 

“Oh, yes — yes, undoubtedly," said Bronsart 
lightly. “But I don’t see that he can help that, you 
know. I said to Wardrope that the crying need of the 
hour was a revised version of the Bible from a capita¬ 
listic point of view. But as long as we give our preach¬ 
ers a socialistic text-book of the rankest type and say: 
‘Now you stick to that,’ there’s bound to be doings, 
if we expect them to show that it upholds the divine 
rights of kings and corporations. The thing to do if 
you want a quiet life and most of the cash, as I said to 
Wardrope, is to encourage the parson to preach on 
Browning, or the world’s ten best pictures, or the ef¬ 
fect of the climate on the weather — something of that 
sort.’’ And Bronsart smiled blandly at Christian. 
Then, with a quick change of tone, he added: “ How’s 
Aylmer 

“Oh, very well, I think.’’ 

Bronsart looked steadily at his son. “Christian, 
you’re a damn fool! But I believe I’ve mentioned that 
before. ’’ 

Yes, no one knew that as completely as Christian 
himself. Even now his mind was busy with the thought 
as he looked furtively at his wife in the pew, beside 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 231 

him, yet in reality as remote as if his life had never 
touched hers. 

From her presence here this evening he inferred 
that she knew that a crisis in the affairs of the church 
was at hand. Yet it seemed unlikely that the opposi¬ 
tion to Boothroyd should be able to accomplish any¬ 
thing definite or immediate, in the face of such popu¬ 
larity as this vast congregation attested. 

“Oh, it’s a flurry — it’ll quiet down, and after a 
bit he’ll become as prosaic as the rest of the preach¬ 
ers.” 

Would he ? Well no, perhaps not. The fellow be¬ 
lieved things, or had persuaded himself that he did; 
like Aylmer, he was possessed of the vicious determi¬ 
nation to put into practice some very interesting the¬ 
ories for which other people might pay the price. 

At the end of the pew sat Vonviette — a marvel of 
clothes, complexion, and apparent indifference. She 
gave to the most casual beholder the impression that 
she considered herself at a show which bored her. 

Luther’s hymn — magnificent tribute to a faith 
which, in this age or that, finds ever triumphant ex¬ 
pression of the hope unquenchable in the human 
heart — rose as were it one-voiced from the great 
congregation. It rose to the tune, mighty of chord, in 
which men of the long ago, strong for the agony of 
death, had lifted it for the last time upon lips which 
knew no language of recant. 


A mighty fortress is our God, 
A bulwark never failing:” 


232 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

A deep flush of colour swept Aylmer’s face; she 
closed her hymnal, and stood as one who listens, her 
hands tightly clasped. A passionate eagerness pos¬ 
sessed her to experience to the uttermost the emotion 
of an hour which, she divined, was to entitle itself to 
supreme distinction in her memory. 

‘*Dost ask who that may be ? 

Christ Jesus, it is he; 

Lord Sabaoth is his name, 

From age to age the same. 

And he must win the battle. ” 

Vonviette stood silent, too — little, flippant, Dres¬ 
den china Vonviette — it would never have occurred 
to the onlooker that she could feel the mighty throbs 
of this great cry of the soul. 

**Let goods and kindred go, 

This mortal life also; 

The body they may kill; 

God’s truth abideth still. 

His kingdom is for ever.” 


The thundering chords descended to the key-note 
with a solemn majesty that shook the heart. The 
coarsest of flesh, the slowest of blood felt it, and was 
vaguely disquieted. 

The sunset no longer flamed through the great rose 
window in the west; yet still the lights burned low 
against the grey walls; the only spot of brilliance in 
the gloom was the pulpit, within which the rector 
stood, facing his people, leaning forward, his chin 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 233 

upon his hand, unconsciously studying them as it 
seemed, in that curious unconventional way which 
had so often irritated the formal souls of the elect. 

‘‘ ’Tisn’t fitting in a church like ours to have a 
man monkeying around in the pulpit like that — a 
pulpit carved in Florence,’’ Wardrope complained to 
Bronsart. 

“Well, ’tis a pity, isn’t it,” mused Bronsart, “that 
we’ve got to have a minister that’s just a human 
being, instead of some sort of contraption designed 
and made to order for us to match the rest of the 
fittings. ” 

Still Boothroyd paused. He was waiting until he 
felt these people gathered close to him; until the sight 
of this face here, of that one there, had eased from his 
heart all remnant of the bitterness which had linger¬ 
ed in it when he stepped to his place. 

Then, for the moment, he saw nothing; his vision 
was blurred by the intensity of the prayer which 
swept him out towards them upon a mighty tide of 
tenderness: “To-night, O God, O my Father, let me 
know nothing but love, nothing but love.” 

And there, in the very instant of entreaty, he was 
conscious of a power as of Pentecost descending upon 
him. He straightened; threw back his head, and 
began: 

“My beloved: Far away in one of the galleries of 
the Old World, there hangs a picture representing a 
young king on his way in procession from his coro¬ 
nation, panoplied in all the pomp and power and 
proud circumstance that this earth can bestow. He 


234 the work of our hands 

makes his way through his acclamatory people upon 
a white horse, burdened with the purple and gold of 
princely appanage, while the loveliest maidens in the 
kingdom strew rose-leaves in his path. And from the 
flower-festooned balconies where beauty sits, the 
rain of blossoms ever falls, sweetening the air that he 
breathes. 

‘‘ Behind him a long line of warriors stretches grim 
— steel of feature as of armour — proud supporters 
of this king in whose veins flows the crowned blood 
for which their forefathers died on many a sodden 
field. Strong of arm, they hold the kingdom for the 
king, and are superbly conscious of their power. The 
God they serve with such arrogance — the only God 
they know — is that marvellous fiction of the human 
mind which has held three-quarters of the world in 
thrall since time emerged from darkness — the Di¬ 
vine Right of Kings, a doctrine which worked as 
most doctrines do — mightily for the Few against the 
Many. 

“Thus the young king comes from coronation, 
where every device, every subtlety of solemn vow, of 
plighted service, has been used to heighten within 
himself and within his people, the consciousness of 
his aloofness, of the supremacy of regal uplift, of the 
unapproachable majesty of the Crown. But — ’’ 
Boothroyd paused — “the procession passes ; ban¬ 
ners float; spears glitter gay in the sun; the long line 
of helmets follows the lonely figure in proud subservi¬ 
ence — and ever the rose-leaves fall, a tinted shower 
upon the dusty way. 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 235 

“ But the king — the king — he has turned his 
head, and there, by the common roadside he has seen 
the vision. 

“ What is it — 

^‘Only the rudely carved figure of the crucified 
Christ, upon rough cross there at the street corner, as 
we have all seen it in our foreign wanderings. Just the 
Christ, with the crown of thorns upon his dying head. 
The procession passes.” 

How still the great congregation! — even Ward- 
rope never moved his eyes from the tall, young figure 
upon which the brilliance of the only light in the 
church turned full, was blazing. 

“But the king — the king! Sometime, when you 
see the picture, beloved, study the wonderful blue 
eyes in that boy’s face — but alas! some there are who 
see them, and never know their meaning — study the 
pain, the fear, the repudiation in them, and remem¬ 
ber!— ” Boothroyd leaned far out over the pulpit — 
“the vision never comes to us without pain, without 
fear, and without our bitter repudiation of it. 

“The procession passes; but another king is at its 
head; he wears the crown of a great state, but he has 
weighed it in the balances with a crown of common 
thorns and has found it wanting. His eyes have been 
opened — he has seen. Henceforward, life is not to be 
for him along a rose-leaf path. Life for him will be full 
of unrest, of disquiet, for his face is the face of one 
destined to greatness — he is not to take life less than 
nobly. 

“He is a king, but his title has acquired to him new 


236 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

meaning. He is a king — that he may serve 

the least of his subjects. He is a king that 

he may lay his crown humbly at the feet of 
that majestic ideal which knows no victory save 
that of sacrifice, no peace save in renunciation, 
no triumph but that which crowns defeat on 

Calvary. 

“Renunciation — Oh, my beloved, I wish that I 
might write that word in letters of fire upon your 
hearts. Why ? Because to-day society is sick unto 
death of the ‘strife for things desired.’ Yet can we 
call that strife in some of its manifestations ignoble ? 
Shall the man at the plough, the mechanic beside the 
steel hammer, the engineer at the throttle, alone feel 
nought of the mighty movements of our age ? My 
friends, would you think it wise to leave him behind 
in the great race if you could ? Shall he say: ‘Let be, 
let be — the higher education, the greater comfort, 
the broader living, the quickened imagination — let 
be, let be — these are for another and his children, 
not for me and mine. ’ 

“My friends, he is not saying this, and he will 
not. He is human, as are you, who hunger and 
thirst, not after righteousness, but — after a steam 
yacht, mayhap, because your neighbour has one. 

“There are honest souls who speak darkly of the 
materialization of our age, who say that we are put¬ 
ting things in the place of God. How can we ? For 
what is God ? Who shall define, who shall limit Him ? 
Do not you think that the Great Mind is within every 
new marvel of invention — within every struggle of 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


237 


the scientist to evoke the order of law from the chaos 
of * lorance ? 



“Two hundred years ago our forefathers wor¬ 
shipped in fear the Power that cast helpless infants 
into hell — to-day we set a little child in the midst, 
and seek to learn from our own tenderness towards it 
some of the precious secrets of the Eternal Love. We 
no longer worship crude brute power as our fathers 
did — the steel hammer and the modern forge have 
cast into the shade the little devil, with his cheap red 
fire ablaze upon human flesh. 

“There are others who describe our time as a period 
of transition — sadly uncomfortable, but to be en¬ 
dured as well as may be. They appear to infer that hu¬ 
manity sailed out of a peaceful haven about fifty years 
ago into an unexpectedly troubled sea, but that just 
around the corner of the next few years or so, peace 
and a contented lower class await our tempest- 
tormented craft. 

“ My people, there has never yet been an age which 
was not one of transition. There has never yet been an 
age which was not uncomfortable for some one. Some 
of us have merely become aware of this unpleasant 
condition of things, because it is being forced upon us 
that the ease which we consider our right, is being 
questioned by some as unearned privilege. 

“This fiction of the transitional age is a vicious 
one — the people who believe in it are apt to feel 
sorry for themselves and their discomforts, but they 
argue that the misfit period will soon pass, and 
everything be happy as before. So, with folded 


238 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

hands, they sit back and wait to see the good times 
happen. 

‘‘ Good times, beloved — and by good times those 
of you who know me, know that I do not mean the 
good times of these careless folk — good times will 
never happen to the next age, unless you and I put 
our shoulders mightily to the wheel and push our 
present problems higher up the hill of human prog¬ 
ress where the light is clearer than down here in the 
valley. The age ahead will have its own problems, but 
we in this can insure that those problems shall be of 
a loftier, more spiritual type than ours.” 

Again Boothroyd paused; then, in a lower tone, he 
added: “To the wheel, beloved, to the wheel!” 

There in the dimness about him, he felt his congre¬ 
gation so near, so inexpressibly precious to him; the 
rapport between speaker and hearer was complete. 

“Then there are those who believe that religion, 
the faith of our fathers is dying in our midst. Unques¬ 
tionably, a great many of the faiths, of the supersti¬ 
tions of our fathers, are dying out among us. And they 
are dying none too soon. 

“In my ministry among you I have said little of the 
question of modern criticism. But what many of you 
understand as modern criticism is not modern. There 
has never been a creed without its critic, a faith with¬ 
out its Thomas, and for that let us thank God, who 
has thus sought to safeguard the freedom of man’s 
spirit. And let the church, which stands for truth, 
render due honour to those who have done so great a 
work in the destruction of untruth, often at such cost 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 239 

to themselves — or what seemed such cost — in 
reality, all joy, beloved, all joy when the day of reck¬ 
oning comes, for the crown of thorns is to all ages the 
crown of achievement. 

“But I have said little to you about all this — 
why Because I believe so much, that I have no time 
to dwell upon the things that we do not and cannot 
believe. O God — ’’ with uplifted face, his arm high 
outstretched as if he sought to lay hold of the Unseen 
— “ O God, give me time — life is so short — give me 
time to make Thy message known — to fill with 
beauty the waste places of human hearts.’* 

Again a moment he waited. 

“I believe so much. I believe in the Fatherhood of 
God. I believe in the brotherhood of man. I believe in 
the divinity of God incarnate in all His children. I be¬ 
lieve in the inexhaustible power of Love — the love 
which gives its only begotten, if need be, and there is 
always need. I believe in the Crown of Thorns, in the 
way of the Cross, in the sacrifice upon Calvary. 

“ I believe in the existence of a peace which this 
world cannot give and cannot take away. 

‘‘ I believe in the persistence of good, and the final 
triumph upon this earth of righteousness. 

“ O God, how much I believe ! 

‘‘ I said to you just now that our age is sick from ‘the 
strife for things desired.’ But there is no escape from 
that strife for us. The corporation which owns our 
light, our water, our heat, our steel highways is governed 
by it as well as the mistress of the little household 
with its one servant. But there are a few of us who are 


240 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

governed by that strife to an extent that imperils the 
welfare — nay more — that threatens the existence 
of many others of us. And that will not do in these 
days, my brethren. For we have travelled far from 
those easy days of capitalistic control when a strike 
was followed by the hanging of six thousand Roman 
labourers. We are entering upon the day of the under 
dog, thank God! There are those of us who fear the 
dawning of that day — who are making desperate 
efforts to set its sun back in the heavens. That has 
been tried many times — it has never been accom¬ 
plished. My friends, we must learn to live not only in 
our age, but with it. The shores of human history are 
strewn with the wrecks of those who sought to turn 
the stream by rowing against it. That cannot be done. 
It were well to learn the lesson without the shatter¬ 
ing of the ship. 

“ It is the dawning of the day of the under dog, but 
to understand all that this is going to mean, to accept 
our share in it, is going to make mighty demand upon 
some of us. It is not easy when dividends suffer, from 
the passage of laws regulating child labour, from dis¬ 
abled employees and eight-hour acts, for men to wel¬ 
come such legislation. But that is what we are going 
to be called upon to do. We are called upon to hail 
with joy the dawning of the great day when a man 
shall be worth more than a dollar, when we shall pro¬ 
tect his little child from our own greed with all the 
rigidity of the severest laws that we can frame. 

‘‘Perhaps we shall be called on for more than this. 
Perhaps this dawning of the day of the under dog 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 24I 

means for some of us the coming of that time when we 
shall consecrate not a part, but all of our gift for 
money-getting to the service of our fellows, because 
like the young king in the picture, we shall have seen 
that which eye never sees, nor ear hears, nor the 
imagination of man conceives. 

‘‘ Not so long ago there died in this country, a man 
of whom it was said by those who knew, that had he 
chosen to devote himself to the commercial life, he 
could have made most of the money west of the Al- 
leghanies. Now that man knew better than any of his 
observers, how vast were his powers, and all that they 
might gain for him. But he did not use them in making 
most of the money west of the Alleghanies. Why ? 

“ Because he, too, had seen the vision. And his me¬ 
morial tablet says of him: The whole city was his 
parishy and every soul needing him a parishioner. He 
is dead, but the soul of him lives on, immortal in his 
fellows. 

‘‘ Perhaps, beloved, there is to come to some of us, 
to God’s priceless few, this great call to poverty. 
There is no call so needed in our day. 

“Poverty! — that joy which vows itself to know 
hunger with those who hunger — pain with those who 
suffer — sorrow with those who mourn — tears with 
those who sin. 

“This call to poverty ^ — it is a strange call in such 
a place as this where wealth worships in so costly a 
temple. It is out of place — it offends the ears of many 
of you. My friends, I understand that, and because I 
believe that no man with a message need struggle for 


242 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

a place in which to deliver it, I am speaking to you to¬ 
night for the last time.’’ 

The stir in the congregation was so instant — the 
wave of feeling ran so high, that Boothroyd was con¬ 
strained to wait until it should subside. The tumult of 
his own emotion for the moment matched that of his 
people, but the flame of his dark eyes alone betrayed 
him. 

“Damn!” said Christie Bronsart under his breath 
— “Damn!” He had slipped into a seat at the rear of 
the church just as the sermon began. Then he smiled 
his cool little smile. Well, this was stealing Ward- 
rope’s thunder with a vengeance. 

“There are some high souls,” continued Booth¬ 
royd in calmest tone, “who make such struggle to be 
in tune with the Infinite, that they overlook altogether 
the duty of being in tune with the Finite. But I believe 
in the ministry of peace, and I agree with those of you 
who think I have no business in this pulpit. I have 
none. That ideal, that Christ to whom this church is 
dedicated, is not my Christ, my ideal. When I came 
here, I was told that I was expected to preach the 
Gospel. I understood that to mean the Gospel of that 
Christ whose life is told between the covers of this 
book. Have I preached that — have I 

He waited as if for answer — the silence seemed to 
thunder it back to him. 

“Ah, in that last great day of reckoning, when life 
faces death, when the end of all the fever and the fret, 
the passion and the pain of my breathing’s brief space 
is upon me — O God, in that great reckoning, grant 


THE work: of our hands 243 

that some of these here to-night may bear witness for 
me before Thy throne, that the Gospel I preached in 
this pulpit was indeed the truth, the word that be¬ 
comes life.’* 

‘‘Damn!” said Christie Bronsart again, “Damn!” 

“So I stand here, beloved, for the last time. You 
will be here again, and for many Sabbaths yet to come 
but my place will know me no more. And so I would 
leave with you — with you who have heard the call, 
my text, to remain in my memory and yours, an im¬ 
perishable link between us. 

“ ‘ Come ye out from among them, and he ye sepa¬ 
rate.* 

“Separate ? — Separate! — beloved, is that a word 
for love to use ? Ay, ay. Come ye out from among 
them, and be ye separate — separated from self- 
seeking, from wanton luxury, from the lust of gain at 
another’s cost — separate that you may serve, that 
you may save. And for the last time, I uplift before 
you to night, no dead and gone theology — I make 
demand upon you for that righteousness old as the 
soul of man, and as imperishable. 

“Here in our midst, at this moment, the Christ 
stands, with the wounds of humanity upon him and 
pleads: Soul of man, wouldst thou see Paradise with 
me when the night of life is past ?” 

The voice sank almost to a whisper. 

“Ay, Lord, ay. We would see Paradise with Thee. 
But how, but how ? 

‘‘The procession passes. And there, lifted high, 
that all may see, if they will. Eternal Love hangs 



244 the work of our hands 

crowned upon the cross of sacrifice, the cross of 
joy. “ Belovedy have you seen the vision ? 

The great congregation dispersed upon steps that 
were hushed; the heavenly singing of the choir was 
stilled; the last faint note of the organ sank upon the 
silence, and still Aylmer sat, as she had sat through 
the sermon, unstirred. At the far end of the pew Von- 
viette waited, her little foot tapping the hassock im¬ 
patiently. 

Christian stood, restless, uncertain. He was in an 
agony of apprehension about his wife. 

‘‘Aylmer!’’ he said gently. 

She lifted her white face to him. 

“Take me home, Christian — take me home,” she 
said with lips which hardly moved. 


CHAPTER FIFTEEN 


A ylmer lay calm, in such soft content. It 
was so still, so heavenly still. There had been 
a great storm in the night, but that was long 
past. Now all was peace, such utter peace. 

She closed her eyes again. 

Ah, Hillman was whistling beneath her window. 
No, he stopped suddenly. She liked to hear Hillman 
whistle — it was such a merry, boyish sound. And 
Hillman wasn’t any longer young. That was the 
charm of it. 

“I wonder how John’s crocuses are coming on,” 
she mused dreamily. “I must get over there to-day. 
Why, I haven’t been there for a week — John will be 
hurt.” 

That dreadful storm — she had slept so badly. The 
night had seemed an unending agony. 

What lovely Easter lilies there on her table! But 
surely — had they been there the night before when 
she went to bed ^ How was that ? Who had been in 
her room so early this morning ? 

How beautiful they were. They made her think 
of Stroud again. With such pride he had showed 
her a great pot just like these, and said he 

24S 


246 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

meant to have them ready for her on Easter 
Sunday. 

Yes, perhaps they would be, for Easter was late 
this year. 

‘‘ Why, Sincerity — Sincerity! ’’ she said suddenly in 
gentle astonishment. But her voice was so ghostly 
faint — it made her almost smile. And even smiling 
seemed too great an effort — she was so lazy this 
morning. But what was Sincerity doing there by the 
window, sewing, just as if she had been there forever ? 

In the instant Sincerity was beside her. “My 
lamb,’’ she said in strong but tenderest tone. “My 
lamb, did you want anything?” 

“Why, no, no.” How could Sincerity think she 
might want anything ? Was it not enough to lie there 
half dreaming, such happy dreams ? 

After that she was still again for a long time, some¬ 
times sleeping, sometimes awake, but always watch¬ 
ed by Sincerity. 

At last she stirred. “Sincerity, bring me — you 
know — the little things ” — her voice was entreat- 
ingly sweet — “ the ones we laid out to be used first. ” 

“Oh, not now, my lamb, not now. Better wait 
a while. ” 

“No, now, now,” exclaimed Aylmer with pathetic 
imperiousness. “ I cannot wait. I’m just aching to look 
at them. It won’t be long now before we really want 
them, will it ? You see — I think, perhaps. I’m a bit 
ill to-day. ” She had a proud little air as if imparting 
a secret quite unsuspected by Sincerity. “Quick, 
Sin dear, I really must see them. ” 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 247 

“What a funny old Sin!” she thought affection¬ 
ately. “I suppose she’s frightened because I think I 
feel ill. But I’m not afraid. Aren’t my hands thin, 
though. I never noticed that before.” 

But she smiled, and lay still in a rapture of expec¬ 
tancy. Pain ? — Yes, but what would that matter —• 
afterwards! 

With returning consciousness she had grasped but 
one strand of the tangled skein she had so nearly 
dropped — the last strand to which she had clung so 
desperately as the darkness of agony engulfed her. 

Who was whispering in her dressing-room ? “You 
must tell her — no one else can. ” 

What did that mean ? 

At last Sincerity came back, slowly enough it seem¬ 
ed to her impatience, bearing a dainty, lace-trimmed 
basket. She sat down beside the bed and lifted the 
cover with hands that shook. 

“What is the matter ? Aren’t you well, Sin dear ?” 

“No, dear lamb. I’m not,” said Sincerity help¬ 
lessly. 

“Poor old Sin!” Aylmer stretched out her white 
hand and tenderly patted the rough ones, vaguely 
groping among the dainty bits of garments. “If it’s 
that dreadful old pain again. Sin, we must see Dr. 
Day about it. ” 

Dr. Day! a spasm of pain crossed her face. Dr. 
Day! The mention of his name was like the meeting 
of her teeth upon grit, and with an instinctive desire 
for escape from a thought in some inexplicable way 
full of distress, she turned to the basket. 


248 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

“But they are not here, Sincerity — the ones we 
laid out specially, I mean. Where are they ? Who has 
pulled the basket all about ? ” 

Her voice sank to a whisper, as strange fear laid 
hold upon her heart. 

“Tell me. Sin. What is it.? What has happened.? 
Why are you crying so .? ” Her eyes were wide with the 
appeal of a frightened, uncomprehending child. “Oh, 
Sin, I feel so strange,’’ she added with a sob. “What 
has happened to me.? Oh, Sincerity, my baby, my 
baby! What have they done with my baby .?” 

Hours after, she still lay, again unconscious. It 
seemed that she had groped feebly back to the day¬ 
light of life, but to make bitter discovery of its cruelty 
to her. 

And Christian sat again beside her, as he had sat 
through those terrible hours which had threatened to 
leave him forever alone. Every now and then during 
that long struggle his father had come up for a mo¬ 
ment — just to lay a hand on the boy’s shoulder, with 
the longing to show that his heart was wrung by the 
misery of it all. And yet this was what he had antici¬ 
pated as the only thing likely to bring sight and sanity 
to Christian — to them both, indeed. But no, not such 
horror of agony, such deadly fear as this! 

If the boy lost Aylmer, there would be a blot on his 
life that nothing would efface. He had gone through 
the anguished experience of bereavement himself, 
but he knew his nature for a lighter one than his son’s; 
the obstinacy which in the one threatened the destruc¬ 
tion of personal happiness, in the other had been used 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 249 

only in that fight with the world where the possession 
of it counted for so much. “No, I don’t believe I ever 
made the mistake of using my faults to promote my 
own discomfort,” Christie Bronsart reflected dis¬ 
mally. “But it probably takes an artist in the study 
of human nature — his own — to do some of the 
things I’ve done. Christian takes himself so blamed 
seriously — so does she, poor child. It takes a wise 
man to understand that the other fellow’s point of 
view is infinitely more important to the wise man 
than his, however wise, is to the other fellow. I’ve 
spent my life finding out the other fellow’s point of 
view and utilizing him and it for my own benefit. 
But these two poor children —And Forsythe, another 
of the same brand! Poor Forsythe! I don’t know which 
it’s hardest on just now, him or Christian.” 

The silent, suffering father had paced the street all 
night — the last night of the long struggle, his eyes 
always on the windows where the lights burned 
brightest. And when, in the early morning, they had 
called him in to look on the face of the little dead child 
— his grandson — and his enemy’s — he had turned 
fiercely upon Bronsart and had said: 

“What misery has your son wrought in my little 
girl’s heart that has brought such calamity as this to 
pass 

And Christian had heard the father’s cry; it re¬ 
peated itself over and over again in his dulled brain 
as he looked at his wife’s still face upon the pillow. 
What misery had he not wrought in her heart in those 
few days after she had spoken to him about the brace- 


250 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

let! — when she must have waited — waited in vain 
for him to say something to her ? To think that she 
had gone into that devastating agony with no supreme 
consciousness of his love for her to sustain her! Even 
believing, perhaps, that he had given his affection to 
another woman. 

He, Christian, care for any other ? He leaned over, 
and lifted her white hand to his lips, his heart bitten 
with pain for her. But he laid it down again. He was 
not worthy of that. 

Ah, had he not seen her shrink from him in those 
agonizing moments of consciousness, when it seemed 
to him that he must speak to her, or weep like a 
woman ? — her eyes had turned ever to Sincerity, 
of whose faithful affection she had never known 
doubt. 

The love of the man for the woman — how she 
must have analysed it, and, at length, scorned it — 
this woman in whose high nature there was no dross 
to match dross. 

If she lived — Ah, God! if she lived, how was he to 
win again all that he had so lightly lost ? 

The impulsiveness which lay side by side in his 
character with his obstinacy, flamed high; the pendu¬ 
lum was swinging mightily the other way. He would 
show her — he would serve for her seven years if need 
be — nay, seven more! 

The loss of the child had affected him but slightly 
— it seemed such a minor happening. He was sorry 
in a vague, impersonal way — sorry for the child, he 
thought. 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 251 

Ah, Aylmer, Aylmer! — how could he think of 
aught but her ? 

The hours so slow, the nights so long, moved on in 
spite of fears; days slipped slowly into weeks. 

And then, to his amazement and grief, Christian 
found that time as it passed, and Aylmer’s tenderly 
cherished recovery, were bringing him no nearer to 
her. She greeted him always in the same sweet, un¬ 
smiling way; the gulf that yawned between remained 
unspanned. It was not that she impressed resentment 
upon him; it simply seemed that something had died 
in her. 

It was a gay saying of Christie Bronsart’s that a 
wise man never went to bed at night without knowing 
where he could obtain a new wife in the morning if he 
happened to find that he required one, but when there 
had seemed every reason to suppose that his son 
would discover himself in this position, he had had no 
jocund advice with which to cheer him. He had a 
genuine affection for Aylmer, and his fist, moreover, 
was very decidedly against that sleek pussy. Erica 
Rymal. “She’s such a very unprejudiced person,” he 
reflected. “She would marry either me or my son — 
whichever of us happened to require a wife first. 
Christian’s been an ass, and he’s paid the price. If 
that’s all there is to it, he’s got off easily in my esti¬ 
mation. ” 

He sighed, and was thankful he could feel light¬ 
hearted once more. It had been a hard fortnight for 
everyone concerned; he had had enough of watching 
and wakeful nights for a while — he had lived at 


252 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

Christian’s for nearly a week — and when he felt sure 
of his first undisturbed evening in his own den, with a 
peaceful cigar, he prepared to yield himself in laziest 
contentment to the luxury. 

But he had hardly been alone twenty minutes when 
Vonviette came in. 

“Papa Bronsart, I want to talk to you a little bit,” 
she said, seating herself on the arm of his chair. 

“All right. Kitten. What is it?” he answered ten¬ 
derly. “You look tired. What have you been up to to¬ 
day?” 

“Oh, thinking — thinking.” 

“Thinking!” he echoed with laughter. “Oh, Von, 
you musn’t do that. You know you were never made 
to think. ” 

“Well, whether I was or not. I’m forced to it now.” 
She spoke without smiling. 

“Girlie, what’s the matter ?” 

“The matter?” She drew in her breath. “Oh, 
Papa Bronsart, Papa Bronsart, such a dreadful 
thing is the matter. And nobody but you can help 
me.” 

“Damn! It’s some man. I’ll be bound,” thought 
Bronsart quickly. He felt as if a screw in him tighten¬ 
ed suddenly; he had the father’s unconscious, instinct¬ 
ive aversion to the man who would make a wife of his 
daughter. His little Vonviette! — what experiences 
the future might hold for her — experiences from 
which he shrank with the memories of the past two 
weeks still hot in his heart. 

“Well, what is it ?” he asked a trifle huskily. 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 253 

“Oh, I wonder — I wonder how I can tell you, 
Papa Bronsart.” 

Yet she was calm; that further alarmed him. “I re¬ 
member her just like that,^’ he thought, “when she 
was a little baby, beginning to talk. She had jammed 
her bit of a finger in the door, and she held it up to me 
bleeding, and without any tears said so quietly: 
‘’Ook, Papa Bwonsa’t, ’ook.’ And now something is 
hurting her just like that.’’ 

“What is it. Kitten, what is it?” He stroked her 
cheek softly; he had with her the femininely tender, 
caressing ways natural to him with all women — 
above all, with this beloved child, who had known so 
little of brooding motherhood. 

“It’s like this. Papa Bronsart. You’ve been so taken 
up lately with Christian and his troubles — you 
haven’t thought much, have you ? — of some of the 
things that are happening in this town” — there was 
a pause, then she added: “Mr. Boothroyd is here 
again, but he’s going away for good on Thursday. ” 

“Mr. Boothroyd!” He noticed instantly the drop¬ 
ping of the epithet “Father. ” And his heart stood still. 

“Well, little one ?” It was a very tender touch upon 
her cheek. 

“Well, you see. Papa Bronsart” — she slipped 
down until her face lay close against his — she knew 
no fear of her father — “you see, I love him. ” 

“The devil you do!” he exclaimed with an effort 
at lightness. For in his soul he was saying: “This is a 
damned mean turn of the wheel. ” But she must never 
suspect that he thought that. No, no! 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


254 


“Well he said again. He smoothed the hair back 
from her forehead, and then he saw that her eyes were 
full of tears — she began to sob. 

“Why, girlie, girlie!’’ he drew her close to him 
again. “What’s the matter.? Is it anything to cry 
about ? Is it because you’re afraid I — I — ” 

“Oh, papa dear, no, no! Haven’t you always let me 
have anything I want?” 

“Well, aren’t you going to have this?” he de¬ 
manded. 

She slipped off his chair, and on to the footstool be¬ 
side him, wiping away her tears with a bit of lace as 
costly as everything about her. And he watched her 
in silence. What had happened ? What was interfer¬ 
ing with the happiness of this child, dearer to him 
than anything else in life ? What dared interfere with 


it? 


She was calm again, but he was afraid of that. He 
liked it better when she cried with her face against his. 

“You see. Papa Bronsart, I — I — love him, but 
— he doesn’t love me. ” 

“He doesn’t love you,” repeated Bronsart. “Oh, 
he doesn’t, indeed!” 

“Damn his impudence!” he exclaimed under his 
breath — “Well, I guess that can be got over, 
maybe.” 

Have the chance to love his daughter, and not do 
so! He would just like to meet the man capable of 
that. 

“Ah, but that’s it. Papa Bronsart. I’m not sure 
of that. Because — don’t you suppose — don’t you 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 255 

suppose that when I wanted him to love me, I haven’t 

— haven’t — ” she paused. 

“Ah, so!” It was an exclamation of his mother’s, 
slipping out of the long past; nothing could have be¬ 
trayed equally the agitation growing in him from 
moment to moment. 

“He has never once thought of loving me — the 
idea has never even occurred to him.” 

“Oh, it hasn’t!” From a certain amazed indigna¬ 
tion that the man should have presumed to aspire 
to his daughter’s affection, Bronsart was passing 
into an equal state of amazement and indignation 
that he had not done so. “He hasn’t, indeed!” 

“No. And so, papa darling, you have got to do 
something for me. I have thought it all out. That’s 
why I’ve been thinking all day. You are to go and tell 
him that I love him, and that he has got to love me.” 
She looked at her father commandingly. 

Bronsart sat back in his chair. “Vonviette, I — I 

— tell him — that! ” 

“You must. You see, there is nothing else to do. 
Papa Bronsart. Because I will have him. I must. 
Haven’t I always had what I wanted .? Haven’t you 
always got for me everything that I asked for ?” 

“But Vonviette, my child — a man — ” 

“Papa dear, you mustn’t argue with me. It won’t 
do any good,” she said patiently. Then her tone 
changed — she stood up. “Listen! I have never 
wanted anything in my life as I want this. I would 
throw away everything I ever had, or ever will have, 
to get it. If I can’t have it, I shall never ask you for 


256 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

anything again.’’ She flashed a strange look at him. 
“Oh, I’ve always been so sick of having all that I 
wanted. Didn’t you ever suspect that, Sonny — it 
was her pet name for him — of rare bestowing — 
nothing could have acted on him as it did now — 
“didn’t you suspect it sometimes when you saw, 
when you must have seen, that I wasn’t one bit grate¬ 
ful for something lovely that you gave me ? — you see 
it meant nothing to you to give it to me, and nothing 
to me to take it. ” 

It was true. There had never been a moment’s self- 
sacrifice in the love he had felt for her — how could 
there have been 

“I’ve often looked at people who wanted things, 
and wondered what that would feel like. I’ve envied 
them so. Then I’ve tried giving them things to see if 
that made me happy. It didn’t. I’m not like Aylmer. 
I was in her room the other day when Sincerity 
brought that man, Stroud, up to see her. I could tell 
that he just worshipped her. I wondered how in the 
world she could feel so interested in him. Aylmer 
loves people — any common old thing that breathes. 
I couldn’t. They all bore me. But now — now!” — a 
bright spot flamed in her cheeks — her little hands 
shook. “Oh, Papa Bronsart, I want him. I want 
him. And you must get him for me. You must.” 

Bronsart could have laughed aloud — or wept — 
at this pathetic, this tragic result of her life-long train¬ 
ing in having what she desired. 

“Child,” he said tenderly — so tenderly, “I am 
afraid that may be difficult.” 


THE WORK OF OUR HANt>S 257 

“Difficult!” she stamped her foot. “Of course it 
will be difficult. What do I care ?” 

He was silent. At last he said: “Vonviette, I have 
been this man’s enemy. I have made his way here im¬ 
possible for him. He must know that.” 

“I daresay,” she answered indifferently. “That 
would all count for nothing, if — if he began to love 
me. You will goto see him ? You will talk to him ?” 
She looked steadily, imperiously at her father. 

“My child!” he exclaimed. 

There was silence again until she said in the quiet 
tone that disturbed him so: “Sonny, don’t you love 
me more than anything else in the whole world ?” 

“Guess I do, Vonviette.” His lip quivered. 

“Then get me what I want.” 

He felt the appalling cruelty of her demand upon 
him — but he put that thought resolutely aside. His 
child had come to a fearful pass to ask humiliation 
such as this of him — to be willing to accept it for 
herself. 

Not for a moment did he seek to belittle this crisis 
— he understood his daughter too well. The brilliant 
intuition which had so often revealed to him his rivals’ 
plans when they were but taking slow shape in their 
own minds, enabled him now to measure the possible 
results of this catastrophe with increasing appre¬ 
hension. 

“Just how shall I go about that, Von ?” he asked 
quietly. 

“You must go to see him at once.” 

“And tell him that you love him ?” 


258 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

She nodded — the tears were in her eyes again. 
‘'You see, papa, perhaps, when he thinks of that—• 
don’t you see ? — I told him once that he cared only 
for the people who were in distress — who were suf¬ 
fering. You can tell him that I am.” 

“Oh, damn, damn!” said Bronsart, none the less 
forcibly because inaudibly. 

“You see, when he thinks it all over,” she pursued 
calmly, “it would mean me — many men have 
thought me not undesirable — and a great, a great 
deal of money, wouldn’t it ? ” 

“Oh, Von, don’t you know, child, that he isn’t that 
kind ? Money ? — why it means nothing to him — 
nothing. ” 

“Oh, you never can tell,” she retorted, unmoved. 

He looked at her, so fair, so childish in her dainty 
littleness, and had a curious perception of his own un¬ 
scrupulousness thus revealed to him in his daughter 
— she would bribe, buy, steal, what she wanted, — 
possess it at any price. How often he had felt, and said 
what she had just said—and proved it true—in the 
determined struggle to obtain what belonged to some 
other. 

She would willingly know what she loved, less 
noble, less worthy — she would tempt it to be so, if 
she might thereby but possess. 

No, no! She, his daughter, was not, as she had 
truly said, like Aylmer, who for no possible gain 
to herself would have courted degradation for 
another. 

He had a moment of supreme bitterness. Then he 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 259 

said gently: “My child, I don’t think I can do what 
you ask.” 

“ Don’t you ? Very well 

He had feared an outburst; he feared this calm ac¬ 
quiescence more. 

“Vonviette,” he began pleadingly. 

“Oh, don’t make excuses,” she said with a trace 
of weariness in her resolutely hardened voice — “it’s 
all right. You do as you think best. I merely made up 
my mind that I would ask you to do this, so that —• 
afterwards — I should not be tormented by the 
thought that there was something more I might 
have done. I hate regretting things. It’s such a 
waste. ” 

“Afterwards ? — What do you mean, child ?” 

For a moment she considered; then she said arbi¬ 
trarily: “Oh, you do what I’ve asked you to do. Papa 
Bronsart.” 

“See here, Vonviette” — he was suddenly rebel¬ 
lious — “you had better be frank with me. You de¬ 
mand that I shall do a thing that’s quite impossible — 
a thing I would rather take a million or two out of my 
pocket than do — ” 

“Why, of course you would,” she said tranquilly. 
“I quite understand how dreadful this is for you —• 
it’s frightful — I understand, but I don’t care — I 
don’t feel anything about it. I can’t, you know, or I 
should never dream of letting you do such a thing. 
But the alternative — it’s rather serious — you 
wouldn’t like it. Sonny.” 

She stroked his hand, and she felt the pity for him — 



26o the work of our hands 

the first sign she had shown of it — but there was no 
relenting in the look she gave him. 

“Tell me, Vonviette,’’ he pleaded. 

“You see, the first point is, that I must have what I 
want, isn’t it V* 

He nodded, because she waited for an answer. 

“But if I can’t have it,” she said in a low tone — 
“if I can’t — if all that I am and all that you are — 
all that you have — won’t get it for me — ” 

“Vonviette,” he broke in sharply, ‘‘give it all up 
child. There isn’t a man on earth worth such — such 
disturbance. Men are not at all what the women who 
love them, love to think they are. Boothroyd isn’t 
either — any more than any other. A woman never 
understands that soon enough.” 

Her eyes flamed. “Don’t you dare say one word to 
me about him. I love him. I may be a fool, but it’s 
been worth all the years of my life to me just to be 
such a fool, for such a little while. Nothing else has 
counted — nothing else will — not even if I live to be 
an old, old woman. I shall live just to be a memory of 
that. Do you see. Sonny ? ” 

He nodded again. 

“And if I can’t have it — if I can’t — ” she revert¬ 
ed to her former tone—‘‘then you see” — she spoke 
now as if to herself alone — “I shall surely enter the 
Convent of the Sacred Heart.” 

“Vonviette!” he exclaimed. “Vonviette —you!” 

He looked at her — the daintiest bit of decorated 
womanhood imaginable — he looked, with a curious 
appreciation at the moment, of nothing beyond the 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 26 1 

reckless value in dollars and cents represented by her 
extreme elegance. Women’s clothes always interested 
and entertained him — he knew within a quarter the 
worth per yard of the endless yards of lace on his 
daughter’s filmy gown. 

“Yes, I know what you’re thinking,” she said 
calmly. “You think that this—” she looked down at 
herself — “these frills, these jewels, mean so much to 
me. You think that I could never give them up for a 
life of toil and hardship. You are wrong. These things 
mean absolutely nothing to me — nothing. ” 

He argued; he entreated; he was nearly tempted to 
bitterness. 

And then, at last, in the coldness of despair, he 
said: “I will go. I will go now.” 

He called up Boothroyd, and asked if he might see 
him at once, although it was so late. 

And then he went out, feeling as if the desolation of 
lonely old age had settled down upon him. For he had 
no hope of his errand. He was used to compelling suc¬ 
cess — he had reached a place where he knew him¬ 
self powerless as an infant against a giant. 

Ah, he had never gone to a man before with a 
proposition on any such basis as this. Many a man 
had come to him in an agony which neared the bor¬ 
der of insanity, and entreated him to speak the word 
that would save, if nothing else — the home about 
which the family affection had rooted itself. He re¬ 
called now, feverishly, with an unconscious desire to 
propitiate some angry, unknown god who threat¬ 
ened his happiness — the good turns that he had done 




262 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

this one and that — never, since the Forsythe aflFair, 
had he wantonly wrecked any man’s prosperity; he 
had merely sought with the utmost consideration for 
all concerned, how to make it serve his own. 

But now, for the first time in his experience, he was 
to stand in the suppliant’s shoes. 

He was not thinking what he should say to Booth- 
royd; that must come as he felt his way. Indeed, it 
seemed to him that if he should try to put into form 
what was before him his courage would fail — he 
would turn about and go home. 

“You look tired,” said Boothroyd as they shook 
hands. 

“I am.” Bronsart gave a sharp, unconscious sigh. 

“ It has been a serious time for you all, ” continued 
the rector considerately. 

“Yes —yes.” All that seemed such a long way off 
now. “Mr. Boothroyd” — his voice stuck suddenly 
in his throat; he shook it loose nervously — “I have 
not been a friend of yours, as, of course, you know. 
But you probably do not know how much of an ene¬ 
my I have been. ” 

“Does that matter now Boothroyd spoke coldly; 
he had as little faith in Bronsart as in any human 
being he had known — there was no masterpiece of 
trickery of which he could not have believed him 
capable. And now the thought at once uppermost in 
his mind was: “What is he after ?” 

And Bronsart divined this instantly. 

There was only one way to deal with this man. 

“Mr. Boothroyd, I believe that once, one went to 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 263 

your Master and told him that his little daughter was 
grievously sick. Mine is to-night; I have come to tell 
you that.” 

‘‘Miss Bronsart?” exclaimed Boothroyd aston¬ 
ished. “Why, I saw her to-day. I had a long talk with 
her. ” 

“Did you ? I daresay.” 

Ah, that was, perhaps, when she had made last 
trial, and then, desperate from defeat, had turned to 
her father for help. 

“That may be, but what I say is, nevertheless, the 
case. Did it not occur to you that anything was wrong 
with my little girl when she talked to you. ” 

The colour came hot in Boothroyd’s face; he lifted 
his fine head proudly. For he understood now what 
Bronsart had come to say to him; his delicacy of feel¬ 
ing for the daughter was outraged by the father’s 
strange lack of it. 

“ Do you think we need speak of that, Mr. Bron¬ 
sart.?” 

“Yes, I do,” answered Bronsart steadily. How old 
he looked, and how beaten. Boothroyd, thinking fast, 
understood more. 

“ My daughter is the dearest thing in the world to 
me,” Bronsart went on. “There is nothing — no 
nothing, I would not do to bring her happiness.” 
He looked unflinchingly straight at the young man. 
“Some day, perhaps, when you have a little girl of 
your own, and she grows up beside you into a woman 
and tells you that she loves some one — that all that 
you have ever done for her, or ever will do” — his 


264 the work of our hands 

voice broke — he paused for a moment — “is as 
nothing to that love — and when you see that it’s a 
love that is going to ruin her life — only then will 
you understand, perhaps, how I can come to you to¬ 
night and beg — beseech you to love my little girl. ” 

There was a silence — of moments long as ages; 
then Boothroyd said huskily: “I can’t, Mr. Bron- 
sart. ” 

There was another silence; then, smothering a 
sharp sigh, Bronsart said with a pathetic effort to¬ 
wards his usual lightness of manner: “Ah, you’re not 
in a position to take up my proposition. Well, I’m 
sorry. You probably don’t ever intend to marry. 
That’s rather apt to be the pose of a young fellow like 
you — clerical into the bargain. ” He hardly knew 
what he was saying; there was such desperate fear in 
his heart that he would break suddenly into maudlin 
tears — grovel at this boy’s feet — offer him unavail¬ 
ing bribe to save his daughter from the life to which 
he knew she would vow herself now. An agony of 
invective ached upon his closed lips; he longed to tell 
this arrogant priestling that he would drive an inno¬ 
cent girl into a damned cell — his clenched hands 
struggled to get at him — to beat him into acquies¬ 
cence. 

“ No, ” said Boothroyd slowly. “ It’s not quite that.” 
There surged up in him an infinite pity for this suffer¬ 
ing father — an infinite regret that he should have 
been the cause of misery sufficient to drive a man like 
Christie Bronsart to such a pass as this. Perhaps he 
could say something that might bring healing to this 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 265 

wound. “I am not free to love any one/’ he added in 
a low voice. 

“Oh, is that it?” exclaimed Christie Bronsart. 
“Don’t you think, then, that you might have let us 
know that before ?” 

“Ah, but I didn’t mean that,” said Boothroyd 
quickly. He hesitated; then he added: “The woman I 
have loved, I too, can never marry. ” 

Bronsart looked up — his intuition was excited to¬ 
night to its utmost limit — he perceived without 
sight, he understood with no knowledge. 

“Ah, you mean Aylmer — I know it,” he said with 
a quick indrawing of his breath — “Aylmer! Does 
she know it ? ” 

“Does she know?” thundered Boothroyd. “I 
would cut olF my right hand before she should 
know. ” 

“Ah, never mind looking as if you meant to burn 
me up,” said Bronsart unsmiling. “I shouldn’t have 
said that. Perhaps you don’t see — how could you ? 
— that this only makes it all the harder for me. But 
it’s all right — it lies between you and me. ” He stood 
up. “You’re going to-morrow ? Well, it’s good-bye, 
then. I must get home to my little girl.” 

Boothroyd went back to the letter he had been 
writing, but his mind was in ferment — pity, humili¬ 
ation, amazement succeeded each other without se¬ 
quence. Bronsart’s dignity, his swift insight, his self- 
restraint had wiped out a hundred bitterly hostile 
memories of him — of his treachery, his acutely cal¬ 
culated philanti^ropies — his pagan philosophy. He 


266 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

would never again think of him without an instinctive 
lifting of his hat, as it were. 

And Vonviette ? — Ah, that was a page read once, 
and never turned again. 

“Dick Neilson’s waiting to see you, sir. Shall I tell 
him he may come in ?” It was his landlady’s voice at 
the door.” 

Like Bronsart, Boothroyd too, was weary. The day 
had been full of the experiences and difficulties of 
parting with people whose devotion, it seemed to him 
now, he had never sufficiently gauged. And the inter¬ 
view with Bronsart had stirred him more than he re¬ 
alized. Ah, that man — how close he stood to the wo¬ 
man from whom Boothroyd’s heart ached for some 
word before he went away. But he would never get 
that; he knew it. In what agony he had borne the 
thought of her about with him in those weeks of sus¬ 
pense while her life had trembled in the balance. Just 
to know that she lived — just to know that somewhere 
a waste space on this earth was made glad because 
she did — he knew it was all that he might ever re¬ 
joice in. But after all, that was much. 

Yes, he was tired, deadly tired, but the day’s big 
battle was yet before him. 

“Well, Dick, you came. Fm glad of that, because if 
you hadn’t, I should have gone out to find you. Now, 
I’ve got to eat something — I haven’t had anything 
since noon.” 

In reality he craved quiet. When soul was to meet 
soul, there was some preparation needed. 

And for a long time there was silence. 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 267 

Boothroyd finished his supper, and then sat as if 
oblivious of the present — his head thrown back, his 
eyes closed — only the restless movements of his 
hands, the clenching and unclenching of the fingers 
betraying the struggling of his mind. 

The boy sat uneasily in a straight chair, his eyes 
fixed moodily on the floor. Once in a while he raised 
them to look at the head of a great Christ by a mod¬ 
ern interpreter of paint and mysticism upon the op¬ 
posite wall. The eyes were those of one saying: I am 
come to seek and to save that which is lost. 

The boy quivered under the spell of those seeking 
eyes. The gay plumage of his youth was all drooping 
to-night, for he had lost faith in the evil that he had 
loved. And was it not better to believe in the good in 
evil than to believe in no good at all ? His young eyes 
hardened; he looked defiantly into those great ones 
that said: / am come to seek and to save. 

And then Boothroyd got up, and came over to him, 
laying his hand on his head. 

‘‘Dick Neilson,’’ he began slowly, “you’ve got 
about every handicap a mortal can have. You were 
born wrong to begin with, you’ve inherited everything 
wrong. What ought to be the best and finest things 
become in you the worst. And you’ve been brought 
up wrong, but you’ve made it impossible for you to be 
brought up right. 

“ And now you always choose wrong — you don’t 
know how to choose right, or to keep right if you hap¬ 
pened to choose right. You’re going to the devil — to¬ 
night he’s sure you’re his. He doesn’t expect to worry 


268 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

very much more about you, Dick, and sometimes 
lately, Fve been in such despair about you — for, 
Dick, Dick — is there anything you can think of that 
I might have done for you and have failed to do ? — 
and yet Fve been in such despair that Fve wondered 
yes, lately Fve wondered whether I hadn’t just better 
give up the struggle and let the devil have his own. 
Fve wondered whether, after all, you didn’t in truth 
belong to him. ” 

The boy looked sharply up at him. 

“You see, lately, Dick, you’ve taken love — love, 
the noblest, the most powerful emotion a man’s heart 
can know, and you’ve debauched the temple of the 
holiest within yourself until you no longer understand 
what the word love means. You did once, boy. But 
to you now it stands for all that is most hateful, most 
loathsome in a man’s life. Now listen, Dick,” — un¬ 
consciously the boy answered to the unspoken de¬ 
mand and stood up — “listen. I had a little brother 
who grew up to be twenty, like you. And, like you, he 
was called Dick, I think, perhaps, that was why I 
loved you from the beginning. For you have, too, as 
he had, the power to win love. 

“But when he was twenty he went on, Dick, to 
work elsewhere. That was not easy to understand, 
because it seemed as if there was going to be great 
work for him to do here — work that waits for the 
doing. ” 

Boothroyd took a deep breath; the boy’s eyes never 
left his face. 

“And now, Dick, do you know why I tell you this 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 269 

It is because, after to-night, you are never again to 
be Dick Neilson — you are to be Dick Boothroyd. 
But you are not only to be called by his name — you 
are to he Dick Boothroyd. You are to think his pure 
thoughts, to do his noble deeds — you are to learn to 
be an inspiration to every life that touches yours, as 
his was. You are to live with me until I teach you how 
he lived — you are to be trained as he was trained — 
you are to do the work that he left for you to do. And I 
lay upon you to-night a mighty task —you are to prove 
that what was planted in weakness can be raised in 
strength — that what was sown in dishonour can be 
raised in honour. You are to show that man’s sin can¬ 
not hinder God’s purposes of righteousness. You 
who have never known a father, are to become God’s 
son.” 

Boothroyd’s voice wavered suddenly. It had cost 
him more than Dick would ever know to speak as he 
had — to do as he had done, and meant to do. 

“Oh, Dick,” he added almost in whisper, “don’t 
you see that I have loved you with a love that will not 
let you go ?” 


CHAPTER SIXTEEN 

L ooking like a wraith of herself, Aylmer 
paced the brick walk, up and down in the sun¬ 
shine with Christian beside her. Birds were 
busy in the thinly green trees discussing the construc¬ 
tion of the season’s nests; an occasional bee hurried 
murmuring by, seeking fresh blossom; tiny plants still 
bearing upon slenderest stem the seed-pod from 
which they had sprung told again the story of the 
great mystery as powerfully as the giant evergreens 
swaying serene against the blue. 

“You don’t get strong,” said Christian anxiously. 
“ I think we had better go away somewhere as soon as 
possible.” 

“I think I had,” she answered with an emphasis 
which did not escape him. “I had made up my mind 
to speak to you about this, when I felt I could.” 

“Aylmer” — his tone entreated — “why do you 
hesitate to speak to me about anything that you 
wish ?” 

It seemed to him that the old Aylmer had forever 
departed — the wife of that sweet far-away time, so 
eager to listen, so ready to respond. The exquisite 
give and take of married joy — the swift glance, the 

270 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 27I 

passing touch — had all that ever existed between 
them in the silence too precious for speech ? 

Ah, but it had — it had! That was the bitterness of 
it. 

Was there nothing he could do ? — no way by 
which he might win their happiness back to them ? 
It was the question that he lay down with at night and 
awoke to in the morning. Yet as day after day passed 
it became only the more difficult to him of answer, for 
he perceived ever more clearly that a gulf once sprung 
between husband and wife may be more impossible to 
bridge than any other, even though the cause be 
trivial. And the cause in this case was not trivial. It 
ran deep to the roots of all his and Aylmer’s concep¬ 
tions as to the rights of man and woman in marriage. 

But further, beyond all that, was the miserable epi¬ 
sode from which his memory shrank in disgust. 

He looked forward to the years before them, and 
saw an Aylmer grown indifferently submissive to him, 
her passionate interests in the great affairs of life 
dulled by his restrictions and contemptuous disappro¬ 
val — the mother of his children, perhaps, but no 
nearer to him than the woman passing in the street. 

Ah, with the memory of that love they had known 
for a little while persistently sweet in his heart, his 
soul rose hot at the thought of such pallid travesty of 
happiness as that! 

He must — he would have again what he had once 
had. 

But how.? 

For he began to understand his wife — to see that 


272 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

the things for which she had suffered were dear to her 
as life — that the cry of a hungry child was not si¬ 
lenced in her ears by the throwing to it of a crust — 
that she scorned the smothering of a demand for jus¬ 
tice by a gaudy generosity which sought but to spare 
itself all possibility of sacrifice. 

How pathetic had been her attempt to meet the 
claim of another upon her by the establishment of her 
garden! And yet because of its very honesty and loy¬ 
alty of purpose it seemed to him destined to have 
results that no one had dreamed of — least of all, Ayl¬ 
mer herself. 

But in his position what could he do but seek to 
compensate those beneath him for the bitter inequal¬ 
ities which divided them, by a munificence of contri¬ 
bution towards the easing of their burdens ? There 
was perhaps, no unselfishness in that, but was it not 
one of the hardships of his position that he was denied 
the satisfactions of unselfish acting ? 

What madness to suppose that he could revolution¬ 
ize the principles by which the Bronsart business was 
carried on, to suit this or that philanthropic dream! — 
imperil its profits, its very existence indeed! Of what 
ultimate benefit would experiments like that be to the 
men in his employ — men who depended upon him 
for the means of breath ? Nevertheless, he was coming 
to perceive that there were some things he might do — 
he had been thinking much of this of late. That ugly 
fact of the thirty per cent profit made the previous 
year by the cotton mills in which the firm was so heav¬ 
ily interested — coupled with the knowledge that 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 273 

such dividends were secured through the employ¬ 
ment of children under fourteen, a large proportion of 
whom received a wage of fifteen cents a day, had dis¬ 
turbed him more than he cared to admit. He would 
have liked to talk that over with Aylmer, but her atti¬ 
tude to him at present made any attempt at confi¬ 
dences between them impracticable. 

“Aylmer,” he ventured again anxiously, “if you 
want to go away let us settle about it now.” 

“ Perhaps we might as well,” she said with a little 
unconscious sigh. “ But you will not approve of what 
I wish to do.” 

He was ready to exclaim at that — to tell her that 
hereafter he wished her always to do as she desired, 
but a quick fear came to him that she had something 
in mind of which indeed he would not approve. Yet 
he could not refrain from saying: “Is it necessary to 
take my disapproval so entirely for granted I” 

For a swift instant he felt her eyes upon him; then 
she said coldly: “I wish to go away for the summer 
quite alone. I asked your father yesterday if any of 
them are going to use Iddenkask Cottage, and he said 
no — that he would be glad for me to make use of it.” 

“Alone!” The exclamation was wrenched from 
him. 

“Yes — alone,” she repeated with no uncertain 
emphasis. 

What a mockery it was — the sunshine, the nesting 
birds, the gaiety of the young green things! She looked 
down the long brick wall — often when the snows of 
winter were thick upon it she had pictured herself, a 


274 the work of our hands 

young mother in the springtime, lingering there amid 
the fragrance of the new buds, with her babe upon her 
arm. 

“You mean — that you don’t want — me — with 
you ?” 

“You The word held curious note; she hesitated 

— then added tremulously: “Don’t you understand ? 

— can’t you see that it’s because — because I want to 
think about — you — about myself — because I want 
to find out what this riddle means — that I want, that 
I must be alone. I want to think myself back — back 
to the beginning of things — to the beginnings of me 

— I want to find out what belongs to me, and what 
may belong to another — and when I say another, I 
mean you.” 

“Oh, Aylmer!” he cried, “how unfair you are to 
me! If you would only let me talk to you — only let 
me explain — ” 

“Explain!” She drew herself up. “Do you think 
that I desire explanation — that you could explain 
She faced him, anger hot in her eyes; and yet, sud¬ 
denly, her face was wet with tears. “Oh, Christian,” 
she cried, “don’t you see that it’s because I don’t 
know what you can do — because I don’t know what 
we can do — that I must go away alone and think it 
all out. Don’t you see that it’s because I’m so afraid” 

— her voice sank — “afraid that I’ve lost some¬ 
thing.” 

He would have drawn near to her, but she held him 
back. “No, no, that’s it. Don’t you see that I couldn’t 
bear that ? You’ve hurt me too terribly, and in mar- 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 275 

riage one must not do that. I know, yes, that it can 
stand more than any other bond could — but — in 
some ways — so much less.” 

She was still a moment — then a wave of bitterness 
overwhelmed her. 

“To think of it — just to think of it — that she — 
she — dared to send me those flowers with her love 
and her sympathy!” 

She stood far from him — her eyes blazing with 
anger. 

He could not blame her. He had been sitting beside 
her, when the nurse had brought in the box for her to 
open — one of the little pleasures of convalescence. 
She had picked up the card lying on the lovely blos¬ 
soms and then dropped it as if stung. “Take them 
away, please,” she had said in the stillest voice to the 
woman, “ and burn them. You understand that I wish 
you to hum them 

And there he sat, shaken to the depths, yet unable 
to oflFer one word of alleviation! 

To himself now, he said again as he had said a 
hundred times before: what madness had possessed 
him ? It was true that in his youth he had known a 
brief infatuation for Erica Rymal; it had never 
counted against that mystery of passion which later 
had made him the husband of Aylmer. 

And he had fancied to take revenge — to drive a 
woman like his wife back to petty obedience by the 
employment of so vulgar a trick as the simulation of a 
preference for another woman — and the woman he 
had chosen to use as tool for the experiment one 


276 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

infinitely clever at the game of making tools of 
men! 

“But there, that’s over!” exclaimed Aylmer, her 
manner weary again. “The thing now is to find out 
how to go on. Many women just shuffle on from day 
to day without facing their problems. They are afraid 
of the consequences. I am, too. But I shall face them.” 

She looked so frail — so pathetically girlish in spite 
of all that she had suffered. And Christian felt help¬ 
lessly that he only longed to take her in his arms — it 
was the one answer that he knew to all their griefs. 

“You see I do not feel different from what I did 
before,” she went on. “ I mean about all those ques¬ 
tions that troubled me so — whether I may have so 
much, when others have so little. I want to get away 
where life is simple, so that I may think this muddle 
all out. You see, Christian — Oh, if you only could 
see that it is a muddle.” 

“But Aylmer — ” he broke in eagerly, and then 
paused. For in reality how little he cared about any 
muddle, except the big one that just concerned them. 

“Well, now I have told you what I wish,” she said, 
turning towards the house, “and I want to go at once. 
I am so tired of everything.” 

A fortnight later she was gone. He entreated to be 
allowed to go with her and see her settled in the cot¬ 
tage, but she would not hear of that. 

“You would feel that the trail of the serpent had 
been over it all, I suppose,” he said half sadly, half 
bitterly, as he stood beside her in the train, waiting for 
the moment of farewell. 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 277 

She looked up at him with her dear, honest eyes. 
“You must have patience. Some time perhaps — ” 
the train moved; he leaned over and kissed her — the 
first time in months. 

“Oh, Christian — 

But he was gone. 

Aylmer had parted from her father the night before ‘ 
after anJnterview which had tried them both. 

“ My dear, I really cannot understand how you can 
reconcile it with your duty as a wife, to leave your hus¬ 
band for all the summer like this.’’ 

“Oh,dad,” she exclaimed wearily, “I told you once 
before that that expression has no meaning for me. 
There is no such thing as my duty as a wife. The mere 
doing of duty like that never brought and never could 
bring happiness to any one — to any home. Love, the 
only thing that brings happiness, is not a duty, but a 
privilege.” 

“Well, then,” he said with some impatience,“I don’t 
see how you reconcile it with the privileges that are 
yours, to go away in this selfish kind of manner. At 
anyrate,it hasthe appearance of selfishness,mychild.” 

“Oh, dad dear, I can’t reconcile it with anything.” 
There was the tremble of tears in her voice. 

“It’s all a puzzle to me.” He looked at her a long 
time in silence. “ Here are you two — you have every¬ 
thing that heart can crave — you can do everything 
you want to do, and yet you are not contented. My 
dear” — his soul was full of anxiety for his child — 
“have you ever thought that what you really need is 
the peace of God in your hearts ?” 


2 yS THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

It took great courage for him to say this to her. 

“Yes, dad, yes,’’ Aylmer answered gently. “That 
is what we need, but the problem is, how to get it.” 

“Why, my child, the peace of God comes through 
believing on His Son, who takes away all sin.” 

“Oh, dad,” she exclaimed vehemently, “it can 
never come to us — to Christian and me, by any such 
easy method as that. The peace of God! Think of the 
justice, the unselfishness, the purity of thought and 
word and deed that must lie behind the possession of 
so great a gift as the peace of God in one’s heart. We 
must attain that for ourselves — it can never be won 
for us through the sufferings of another.” 

He looked at her in sorrow. “My child, the human 
intellect has always sought to belittle the great sacri¬ 
fice of God’s Son — to endeavor by its own vain 
sacrifices to prove that it does not require His.” 

And he went away from her sorrowful. She had 
great possessions, but she was not using them in the 
Master’s service. 

Christian went back to his silent house when the 
business day was done, and thought that he realized 
how people felt when they entered the home again 
after they had borne away their dead — the spirit was 
gone. 

After dinner he tried to read, but the printed words 
became a meaningless blur. Half a day had taken her 
far from him — she was by now in another world, 
thinking thoughts in which he had no share, in which 
she wished him to have no share. 

He went up-stairs and passed the closed door of her 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 279 

room; he had no courage to look in upon its desola¬ 
tion. For weeks it had been the spot about which all 
the house life had revolved — its very stillness 
breathed of her. 

His little child had been born there — had there 
drawn its few uncertain breaths, and then returned to 
the vast unexplained silence out of which it had come. 

The child had gone, but Aylmer had remained. 

He thought of his own little mother. When she 
knew that she was to go, and her child to stay, had 
she wondered perhaps why his life must cost her so 
dear ? Or had she gone out glad, with the cry of the 
child that was to live, sweet to her failing sense; had 
she not given him life and what else mattered ^ 

Life — what great and what little values human 
beings gave to it, in laying it down without relenting 
if thereby another might but have it! A man fought to 
the last gasp to save to himself the misery of mutilated 
existence, and courted death with high unconcern if 
he might but bear a wounded comrade to safety. 
What strange shifting of values in the Great Presence! 

And it was this that Aylmer was seeking to do 
now — to sort and classify the values of human exist¬ 
ence. His heart ached to think of her alone, amid the 
silence of the northern woods, facing without flinch¬ 
ing, this great puzzle of life. 

The long hours of the night passed, but he tossed, 
sleepless, thinking of her, wondering what he was to 
do to win her heart back to him. He had a strong, 
proud will; he realized clearly that he would never be 
content simply to acquiesce in her schemes for the 



28 o 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


sake of harmony. Even now, aching as he was to set 
time back twenty-four hours that he might think of her 
as again under the roof with him, breathing the same 
air, he understood that it was not in him merely to fol¬ 
low as his wife might lead. Of late he had even been 
growing conscious of himself as resenting in an un¬ 
precedented way his father’s summary settlement of 
matters in the business in which it seemed to him that 
he might have been granted the privilege of opinion. 
But Christie Bronsart had the brilliant advantage of 
always knowing exactly what he wanted. His son, on 
the contrary, was becoming aware of himself as not at 
all clear as to what it was most desirable to want. He 
realized how sensitive he had grown to the fact that 
every penny of their income was questioned by Ayl¬ 
mer as to its honesty of origin. The Bronsart business 
had achieved its paramount position through a great 
steal. That was not a fact calculated to reassurance as 
to its present honour. “And we’re into half a dozen 
outside things that I wouldn’t have her know any¬ 
thing about for the world,” reflected Christian miser¬ 
ably. “ But if we weren’t, some one else would be.” 

But that argument grew less and less palliative 
under consideration. 

A lonely month passed in which he threshed out 
unceasingly the conditions under which he had taken 
it for granted he meant to conduct his life. How he 
longed for a word from Aylmer, but none came or was 
to be expected, and under no circumstances was he to 
write to her. “Any letter that you or I might write 
now would mean nothing to either of us,” she had 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


281 

contended. “We should merely write for the conven¬ 
tional reason that we thought it was the proper thing 
to do, and it is to escape all such shams for a time that 
I am going away at all.’’ 

The man’s mind was in tumult — deep, wide- 
reaching. Unknown to himself he had drifted far out 
upon a sea which had no near shore. 

He grew ever lonelier; his desolation seemed to him 
more than he could bear. 

And then one night, there came to him an inspira¬ 
tion so sudden, so powerful, that he seemed for some 
moments but to hold it breathless, unthinking, only 
conscious that he had it — there, in his aching 
grasp — an inspiration that, could she but know 
it — 

Ah, but that was it — she must know nothing of it. 

He could have shouted aloud for joy. For perhaps 
— perhaps, this was to be the way out for them both. 
For then he would know — it would be no longer a 
question of his opinion against what she thought she 
knew. On his side there would be the authority of 
actual experience. 

He waited for a few days, to be sure of himself and 
the wisdom of his purpose. And then he went to his 
father. 

Christie Bronsart heard him out in silence, and in 
silence sat after he had finished what he had come to 
say. 

“Of course you don’t approve — you couldn’t,” 
said Christian nervously. “You think I’m absolutely 
a lunatic.” 



282 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

“Yes, that is of course exactly what I think,’’ his 
father answered with a sigh. And then was silent 
again. 

Christian had felt prepared for any extreme of deli¬ 
cately abusive sarcasm; this unexpected lack of oppo¬ 
sition disturbed him, as that could not possibly have 
done. What was the matter? Was anything wrong 
anywhere ? It occurred to him that he had been pay¬ 
ing scant heed to his father of late. Why, he looked 
old, curiously shrunken in spite of that deceptive 
jauntiness of appearance which impressed the casual 
beholder. 

“Why, father, something’s wrong. I’m afraid I 
haven’t noticed — I’ve been so bothered about my 
own affairs — what is it ? — nothing about Grims- 
combe, I hope.” 

“Grimscombe ? Oh, no, no! What do I care about 
that?” 

Christian stared at his father, for the Grimscombe 
project had meant more, he knew, to that brilliant 
commercial strategist than half-a-dozen other impor¬ 
tant deals. 

But Bronsart braced himself to talk. 

“You’re quite right, my boy, about your absorption 
in your own affairs. But that was to be expected. I 
didn’t blame you, or wonder at it. Each of us must 
live his own life.” 

“But, father, what is the matter ?” 

“ Doesn’t seem to me I know how to tell you, boy.” 
Bronsart leaned against his desk, his eager lingers 
hanging nerveless. “It’s Vonviette, you see.” 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 283 

Vonviette!” 

“Yes. I guess it’s time you knew, and Fll get over it 
quickly. But it sort of burns me — even to tell you, 
my boy. It will be hard for you to understand — and 
be fair to — my little girl. It’s like this. The night be¬ 
fore Boothroyd left here Vonviette told me that she 
loved him, but that he didn’t love her — that he had 
never even thought of such a thing — don’t under¬ 
stand that myself — never saw a woman yet that I 
didn’t wonder whether I couldn’t love her if the abso¬ 
lute need arose. But you see the end of the matter was 
that I had to go and tell Boothroyd — that she loved 
him.” 

Christian whistled softly. Nothing could have been 
more impressive than his father’s entirely unimpres¬ 
sive manner. 

“I had to ask him if he couldn’t persuade himself 
to love my little girl,” continued Bronsart in a voice 
that hardened. “Well, he couldn’t, and there was 
nothing left for me but to go home and tell her that. 
She was waiting for me in the dark.” He paused; then 
added in a shaken tone: “I’ve done some hard things 
in my life, my boy, but I’ve never done anything that 
cost me what that did. Because I knew the alterna¬ 
tive, you see.” 

“The alternative ?” 

“Yes.” It was a very slow “yes.” But then a storm 
of anger shook him into energy. “ My little girl — 
think of it — that little dainty, delicate thing goes 
away next month to enter some damned saint factory 
— convent, they call it — a damned refuge for female 



284 the work of our hands 

ineligibles — and all that her mother finds to say 
about it is, that after all, it’s so sweet, so distingue to 
have a nun in the family. Oh, there isn’t anything for 
me to kick about in that. I know just what kind of a 
blamed fool I gave my little girl for a mother, and I 
know just why I did it. I wanted that hundred thou¬ 
sand of hers so badly for that Carbonburg proposition 
that I couldn’t afford to think what kind of a woman 
went with it — it wouldn’t wait, and it meant mill¬ 
ions. And that’s what kills me now. If my little girl 
was all Bronsart she’d have enough clear judgment 
never to do a thing like this. But she isn’t all Bronsart 
— she’s one-tenth fool — and that one-tenth is going 
to see down and out all that’s worth anything in her 
make-up. My boy, the man that gives his child a fool 
for a mother undertakes to pay at sight a note bearing 
an unspecified rate of interest that never fails to come 
due.” 

Christian had listened aghast. There flashed back 
to him a remark of his father’s made to him long ago: 
“Whatever else may be, Aylmer is the sort of woman 
to have great children.” 

Ah, there was no denying that, and he understood 
as never before what that might mean to a man. 

But his father — his poor father! 

“ But surely — won’t she listen to you — why, little 
Vonviette — ” 

“Listen to me Bronsart’s gesture was one of de¬ 
spair. “ My boy, she doesn’t know the meaning of the 
word reason any more. She’s had her own way all her 
life, and now for the first time that she finds she can’t 



THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 285 

have what she demands, there is no frenzy of self- 
destruction — for that’s what this is — too cruel for 
her towards herself. Oh, she’s quiet enough — I’d 
rather see her breaking her head against a stone wall. 
She listens to all I say and makes no answer.” 

“ But how does such a thing as this happen ? Who 
has been influencing her.?” 

“Oh, it’s that blamed sweet Sister Mary Frances. 
They’ve been inseparable for months. Of course, I 
didn’t know anything about that, and it wouldn’t 
have made any difference if I had. I should never have 
been afraid of anything like this from a girl of Vonvi- 
ette’s stamp.” 

“No, I suppose one wouldn’t. And yet I’m not sure 
that it wasn’t the very sort of thing to expect.” 

“ Perhaps so — perhaps so,” said Bronsart wearily. 

“Have you been to see this sister — have you 
tried — ” 

“Have I been to see her? I guess I’ve worn the 
pavement thin going there. I’ve been to see Father 
Norris, too, until I’m tired, and he was long ago. But 
it’s not to be expected, is it ? — that out of sympathy 
for my sufferings they should offer to turn down a 
proposition like Vonviette.” 

“ But Boothroyd — who would have dreamed of 
her caring for him ? And you couldn’t do anything 
with him ? Of course — the money — I suppose — ” 

“Oh, the money! That’s a minus sign to the sort he 
is. I wouldn’t wonder if he mightn’t have cared for 
my little Von if that hadn’t prejudiced him against 
her from the beginning. Oh, I don’t know though. I 




286 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

guess the kind of woman he’d fancy would be quite a 
different sort.” 

“Hm! I imagine he’s the sort that’s too selfishly ab¬ 
sorbed in his work ever to care for any woman.” 

“Maybe — maybe. But I’m not sure.” 

“Well, I am. That man will never get married; 
you’ll see.” 

“Ah, I daresay not.” 

Shrewd analyst of himself and his fellow creatures 
that Bronsart was, it occurred to him at the moment 
that had any one desired proof of that sentimentality 
of which he was occasionally accused by bewildered 
critics, they would have found ample in the fact that 
he had at no time felt the least inclination to belittle 
the seriousness of Vonviette’s attachment to Booth- 
royd, or that of Boothroyd for the woman impossible 
to him. He accepted them as phenomena by no means 
open to the sneers of that blase philosophy which he 
professed to find quite adequate for the every day of 
life. 

Did Christian suppose that a woman of such pro¬ 
found attraction for a certain type of man as Aylmer, 
would go through life with that attraction unrecog¬ 
nized, merely because she happened to be his wife ? 
Bless the boy! 

“So now you see just what the difficulty is that 
occupies my mind day and night. I am not able to 
think of anything else. It seems to me that my life 
stretches away before me without anything in it worth 
working for any more. I’m going to get older every 
day, and I’m going to be more and more alone all the 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 287 

time. And there isn’t anything quite so lonely in all 
this world as a lonely old man, with no women folks 
about him that belong to him.” 

“ But you’ll have us,” protested Christian. It could 
never have occurred to him that it would be possible 
for his father to develop a frame of mind like this. 

“You ^ Yes, I’ll have you. But if you ever have a 
daughter, my boy, you’ll discover that she’s some¬ 
thing to you that nothing else can be. And I’d lay my 
little girl in her grave with more joy than I shall see 
her going into that convent. But now we’ll drop that. 
I’ve said enough. We’ll come back to your affairs.” He 
paused and looked fretfully at the immense jar of 
roses on the table beside him. “Now, if that isn’t like 
Carter. Over and over again I’ve told him that he 
must not send mixtures down to the office. If they like 
to do that kind of thing at the house, well and good, 
but I won’t stand such atrocity here. I don’t wonder 
the Japanese scorn our ideas of art. There! now 
couldn’t any fool understand that these alone are 
beauty, and the mixing of two or three kinds abomi¬ 
nation But your roses are finer than mine this year, 
Christian. Hillman’s a smarter man than Carter.” 

“Perhaps. But Aylmer has taken such pains with 
Hillman.” 

/ “Ah, I suppose. Well, as I was saying, I think 
you’re a fool, Christian. But it doesn’t matter what I 
think, does it ? Because you mean to do this, don’t 
you 

Christian met his father’s quick look squarely. 
“Yes.” 


288 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


“That’s it. Then there’s little need of my saying 
anything. There was a time when I should have said: 
My son, if you’re going in for any such mad caper as 
that I’ll —well, we’ll leave that to the imagination. I 
don’t see how business is going to be done, though, if 
this kind of maggot’s going to keep on eating into it. 
But I don’t have to understand. I took hold of my day 
and generation with both hands. You’ve got to do the 
same. I’ve no respect for the man who’s only a coupon 
clipper. Since I was ten years old I’ve been busy doing 
things — you can’t look at this city and not recognize 
that. And I want my son to go right on doing things. 
It appears to me that you will, and that you won’t do 
them my way. All right, my boy, go ahead. The day 
that’s coming is yours. You’ve got to meet it. It’s not 
my problem. I’ve made my mistakes and I don’t 
know why I should grudge you yours. A mistake is 
about the wisest turn a smart man can do himself 
anyway. To me, of course, it seems as if it would be 
hard to think out a more colossal one than you’re bent 
on making now, but after all, ’tisn’t calculated to hurt 
anybody but yourself that I can see, and there’s peace 
of mind in that. And incidentally, you will probably 
learn a good deal.” 

“Father, what an open-minded duck you are!” ex¬ 
claimed Christian. 

“Oh, I don’t know.” Bronsart laughed carelessly; 
in reality his son’s words were sweet to his sore heart. 
“ It’s only plain sense to understand that nearly all the 
mischief in the world comes because somebody is de¬ 
termined to make somebody else do things his 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 289 

way. Oh, human beings are a darned lot of asses any¬ 
way.” 

“ It’s the old story — the woman rules,” he thought 
as he looked at his son. “Underneath it all it’s Aylmer 
— Aylmer. He doesn’t know that. He has all kinds of 
fine excuses fixed up in his mind. Oh, the Forsythe 
has got the upper hand in great shape.” He sighed 
sharply; there was bitterness in some of the thoughts 
that came to him. 

Late that afternoon he passed Forsythe in town, and 
greeted him in the jaunty manner so detestable to the 
other. But what he thought was: “Ah, you’ve beaten 
the Bronsart all along the line — all along the line. 
Don’t you understand, John Forsythe, that I’ve only 
begun paying the note I signed in your favour the day 
I ruined you ? — I’ve got to keep paying it as long as I 
live.” 


CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 


A t Iddenkask the quiet days went by, leaving 
no happening but sunrise and sunset behind 
them. And day after day Aylmer sat on the 
wide piazza and looked down over the beauty before 
her, as through a mist. In time she learned to know 
every mood of the little bay, caught fast by cedar- 
shadowed shore, its narrow entrance sentinelled by 
two lonely islands, beyond which, to the simple minds 
of the Moravian inhabitants, stretched that myster¬ 
ious blot upon creation known as the ‘‘world.” 

The cottage, which had been built by Bronsart in a 
period of fishing fervour of which he had soon ex¬ 
hausted the effervescence, stood on a ridge high above 
the shore, in a dense growth of pine and cedar; in 
front the ground dropped to the water’s edge, with 
the view unobscured save by a few great oaks upon 
the roadway. The tiny village clung to the shore to the 
north; when she was out on the bay sailing with Adolf, 
Aylmer felt the pathetic human interest that it gave to 
the lonely coast-line, with its cottages clustered close 
about the little white-spired church as if for protection 
from the storms of life; away over the hill was the 
cemetery, in which according to the early community 

290 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 29 1 

idea, there was no separation of lot — in the great 
sleep each lay next to the other, in the order of trans¬ 
lation into blessedness. If Adolf, the caretaker of the 
cottage, and Ina his wife, felt any astonishment or 
curiosity concerning the fact that a young ‘‘great 
lady” should come alone to Iddenkask, and so re¬ 
main there, they gave no evidence of it. They prob¬ 
ably accepted the case as merely new proof of the 
idiosyncrasies of the people “out there” who spent 
their lives in the doing of strange things. And the same 
spirit of devotion towards Aylmer which had devel¬ 
oped in Mariette — Mariette, proud conservator of 
the traditions and divine rights of privilege inhering 
in noble blood — showed sign of rapid growth in Ina, 
whose simple faith was founded upon the principle: 
“All ye are brethren.” And as time passed Aylmer 
became conscious of a tender intimacy of feeling for 
this woman, whose life had been one of hardship and 
rending sorrow. The woman — how heavily the bur¬ 
den fell upon her in this fair spot, a very Eden of 
beauty. She married young, bore the children — or 
died bearing them — milked the cows, tilled the 
fields, and in the long evenings sat busy-handed, toil¬ 
ing still, while her husband smoked heavily by the 
fireside. As long as she could work, she must; rest 
came only on the quiet hilltop, where one slept well. 

As she delved deeper into acquaintance with the 
neighbourhood history, she discovered that under¬ 
neath the occasional gaiety, the impassive calm, there 
was ever the deep, unfailing note of pathos. These 
people met the agonies of life with the massive peace 


292 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

of despair, and said unquestioning: God’s will be 
done.” 

When Sunday came she went to the little white 
church and sat in a pew with a row of fair-haired 
children, whose eyes had the marvellous blue which 
comes to a race that has looked long upon the sea. 
She understood nothing, for the service was in Nor¬ 
wegian, yet rarely had she been so thrilled. The God 
these people believed in was so near — so indisput¬ 
ably real. He rode into their peaceful bay upon the 
thunders of the storm; He spoke and the rain fell upon 
thirsty fields; He willed it, and the sun shone, ripen¬ 
ing, upon the grain. 

The minister interested her — how came a man of 
such distinction of manner in a little wayside pulpit 
like this ? She could feel his tenderness for this feeble 
flock, and the faithfulness with which he was minis¬ 
tering to it. 

The deep chorales rose and fell in minor, monoto¬ 
nous chord, the women’s voices etching themselves 
lightly against the strong tones of the men — the long 
notes sung in unison produced an effect that set Ayl¬ 
mer’s heart a-quiver; tears gathered under her down¬ 
cast lids. She thought of the wonderful services she 
had listened to in some of the world’s greatest cathe¬ 
drals—of one in Cologne where an immense congrega¬ 
tion had sung as only a German people could—of one, 
a series of marvellous eflFects, in the Madeleine — an¬ 
other, in the Lady Chapel in Strassbourg; and above 
all others, of one in St. Paul’s, where religious emotion 
had seemed to reach its utmost sublimity of appeal. 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 293 

Yet here, amid these bare grey walls, in spite of a 
service sealed to her, there came upon her an exalta¬ 
tion of spirit due to no glory of stained-glass window, 
to no effect of angelic voice soaring in an ecstasy of 
sound among arches dim with the twilight of centu¬ 
ries — to no majesty of ritual which had borne up¬ 
ward before the throne the petitionings of the children 
of God from one generation to another. What grim 
Covenanter, ancestor of hers, had known this same 
kindling of the flame, in hurried gathering of his little 
band on rocky mountain side, to seek above the cold 
sky that God of Righteousness, whom his eyes of 
faith discerned beyond the clouds of time and sense ? 

— unconscious comrade in passionate emotionalism 
of the soul that sought the Spirit in that magnificence 
of liturgic appeal which but reeked to him of the blas¬ 
phemies of the Pit. 

Aylmer loved to talk to Adolf; his slow careful Eng¬ 
lish had a distinct charm in comparison with the 
clipped, slurred speech of the common American. 

“Our minister,’* he said to her in response to a 
question, as they sailed dreamily over the blue one 
warm afternoon — “our minister is an educated man 

— we will not have a man who knows nothing preach 
to us.” 

“How odd!” she exclaimed abruptly. For she had 
not thought of education as having meaning even to 
these people remote from the world — that big world 
where education stood for an improved chance in the 
competitive game of existence. 

“Yes. We Moravians at David” — it was the name 


294 the work of our hands 

of the tiny hamlet — “ are particular about our minis¬ 
ter. But over at Jonathan, ach! our minister have 
often pick up their minister from the road, drunk, 
drunk — and drive him home like a bag potatoes. I 
myself have one day seen that shame. But at Jonathan 
they are Tchermans — you understand 

“Jonathan! David and Jonathan! How curious it 
is,’’ she exclaimed. 

“Yes. David was the name of the first Norwegian 
settler here. Then when some of our people went over 
to the settlement to live they call it Jonathan, because 
we were all friends. But the Tchermans came in 
there. It is big place now — three hundred maybe. 
And we are not friends again. They take stones in 
their pockets to hit the Moravians when they are go¬ 
ing to church. It is sad. Our minister sayLove your 
enemies.’ That is easier when once they are good and 
dead. See! We come to the haunted house. You like 
to go in there ? ” 

“Qh, I don’t know,” said Aylmer doubtfully. 
“How do you come to have a haunted house here 

“We call it that — that is all. It belong to Conrad 
Olsen. He sail all over the world. Every time he come 
home, some one else was dead — his son, his daugh¬ 
ter, his wife. At last he come home and there was no 
one. He stay there one winter all alone, and he say he 
must do something to make him happy. So he make 
his coffin. He work and work, and when spring come, 
he sail away. Then he come home again and he say he 
feel not lonely any more — his coffin was there to bid 
the day to every morning. And he work and work on it 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 295 

again with many carvings, and when spring come he 
sail away again, and he never come home. He was 
drown away out by China they say. That is our life,’’ 
concluded Adolf. “We work hard over what we not 
need. You like to see that haunted house ?” 

“Yes, I will,” said Aylmer. It was no longer repel¬ 
lent to her — ghostly. A spirit touchingly weak, hu¬ 
manly dependent, made appeal to her from the silence 
investing the place. 

The boat ran lightly inshore; she stepped olF. “I 
wait for you — there is no fear,” said Adolf serenely. 
He lighted his omnipresent pipe. Aylmer went slowly 
up the uneven steps of single stones, thinking back to 
the sailor who came home to find that each time death 
had mounted the worn flags before him. 

The house stood in a little clearing among the pines 
— the paint once fresh upon it served now but to dis¬ 
close the weather-beaten boards. The veranda which 
creaked noisily as she stepped upon it showed wide 
gaps in the flooring; at the windows there hung still 
the curtains which some woman’s loving hands had ar¬ 
ranged fresh and white against the traveller’s return. 

It was a house dead, yet testifying eloquently of life. 
Aylmer turned the door-handle and stepped in; no 
door was ever barred against wayfaring stranger by 
these open-hearted people. “Oh, don’t you lock the 
door, Ina ?” she had asked on the night of her arrival, 
when she found it still unfastened as she was prepar¬ 
ing to go up-stairs. 

“Why no, ma’am,” replied Ina astonished, “some 
one want to come in, may be.” 


296 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

She Stepped in, afraid, yet curious to share the emo¬ 
tions with which Conrad Olsen had taken his last look 
upon the home spot before he sailed away upon that 
journey which was to end only in the harbour of a sea 
upon which he had never before spread canvas. 

There, before her, in the middle of the homely liv¬ 
ing-room with its simple furniture unstirred, stood the 
coffin upon rude trestles. It bore quaint resemblance 
to the form of a ship — clumsy fingers had worked 
long and lovingly upon the woman’s head at the prow; 
it struck Aylmer that it must have been meant as the 
likeness of a face beloved in life. 

In the corner behind the door, a sunbonnet and 
shawl hung on a nail; beside them, a sailor’s rough 
jersey — mute, inanimate things which yet appealed 
powerfully to her as possessing a conscious joy in the 
nearness of one to the other. 

She closed the door softly, as if fearful that the 
memories enshrined there might be distressed by her 
intrusion, and went, silent, down to Adolf, and they 
sailed away again into the glittering blue. 

Love — there in that tiny cottage two human be¬ 
ings had set themselves to find out its meaning. 

But perhaps to one the revelation had only come 
when the great shadow had shut out all the world 
beside. 

That evening Aylmer sat late on her piazza and 
looked long towards the cliff where the cottage lay 
deep within the pines. The sunset flamed in bars of 
bronze across the pale west — from the dull grey 
east implacable night drew her purple veil across the 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 297 

paling blue and against it tossed from her limitless 
store, first this star, then that, until she blazed impe¬ 
rial-gemmed, upon the darkling waters. No sound but 
the faint tinkle of distant cattle-bells and the restless 
wash of the waves upon the sand broke the long line 
of silence. 

Home! —how far away it seemed. She had been 
here weeks now — no, it was already months. She 
had almost succeeded in forgetting that she belonged 
anywhere else; she had become absorbed in these peo¬ 
ple — their joys and their sorrows she had made hers 
— they knew that. She could have told why Anna 
Larsen would never marry young Helgesen — how 
Engebret Mondsen had come by those terrible burns 
on his face and hands — brave, silent Engebret — 
for had she not sat a night with Sophie Andersen, 
holding the convulsed hands when that rare and ter¬ 
rible attack had her in its grip — that calamity of her 
innocent existence known only to her mother and 
Engebret. She knew the dark story which divided two 
of the godliest men in the community — the sympa¬ 
thy and comprehension with which she had listened to 
it had done more to wipe away its bitterness than all 
the lapse of years. 

She had come to this isolated spot, that aloof from 
the anxieties and responsibilities of life she might 
study its problems with a clear mind. And now, 
strangely it occurred to her that she was living out the 
days without any heed to those questions which had 
so burnt in her heart; she had forgotten her own dis¬ 
tresses in sharing those of these people. There was the 


298 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

boy with the hungry eyes who ached for the education 
to be got “out there” — a longing so impossible of 
apparent fulfilment that it seemed to him little short 
of criminal to acknowledge it. “Oh, Jert, Jert,” she 
said to him once, “some day you will be a great man” 
— she was sure of that •— “and then you will remem¬ 
ber that line in your litany that the pastor translated 
for me the other day: ‘From the unhappy desire of be¬ 
coming great, spare us, good Lord.* But that couldn’t 
have any meaning yet for you, Jert.” 

Aylmer heard from her father regularly, but he 
made no mention of Bronsart matters ; she had 
asked him not to do so, and it was not difficult for him 
to refrain. She read these letters with a desire not 
to remember but to forget what they said, for 
they revealed that her father felt himself out of 
sympathy with his daughter and her doings at 
present. 

The extreme physical lassitude and depression 
from which she had been suffering when she came up, 
had lifted — the long hours in the woods and out 
upon the water were ministering to her in ways of 
which she was unconscious; she felt only that the 
blood began to flow with its old-time eagerness in her 
veins, and that when she awoke in the morning it was 
joy to have the day before her. 

Sometimes — yes — but she was not to think of 
those things now. They were all away — those ques¬ 
tions — beyond the islands — some day she would 
have to sail out and down to meet them — but not 
yet, not yet. 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 299 

‘'Oh, Adolf, come here,” she called from the piazza 
one morning. “What boat is this coming in V* 

Adolf went slowly and got the glass. “I never see 
that boat before,” he said at length. “She full of city 
people — clothes, hats, you know.” 

They stood and watched the launch approach; a 
chill of fear shook Aylmer. Mrs. Bronsart and Vonvi- 
ette — of course — Erica Rymal perhaps. She could 
not bear it — she looked longingly at the woods be¬ 
hind the cottage. Oh, if she might but escape to them. 

The boat drew into the dock with much screaming 
of a stylish whistle; it seemed to her as she walked 
slowly down the path to meet these guests, whoever 
they might be, that an atmospheric vulgarity travelled 
with them —the little bay with the gaudy boat upon 
it took on a look of tawdry unreality; it seemed like 
the scene on the curtain of a theatre. 

“Oh, how lovely! How sweet! How utterly dear!” 
were the expressions that greeted her as she drew 
within hearing. 

“Mr. Inderrieden!” — she shook hands remotely. 

A little sigh escaped her — there were no Bronsarts 
here. Yet it was the gayest of the city’s gay — the peo¬ 
ple she met daily “out there.” 

“Why, we’re down at St. George,” they chattered. 
“Such fun to come up and surprise you — we never 
realized we could get at you until this morning. — 
Well, you and your husband always manage to do the 
original thing, don’t you— you here, playing the 
shepherdess, and he off — where is it— And Von- 
viette — don’t you call it simply awful of her.? — Oh, 


300 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

you perfectly stunning thing in that five-cent gown — 
you needn’t tell me that you don’t know that you 
never looked so distracting in your life! — Mercy! 
and not a man in sight! Why, you’re as bad as Vonvi- 
ette. But don’t you believe she’ll change her mind be¬ 
fore her probation — that’s what they call it, isn’t it ? 
— or is it novitiate, is over ? — Oh, no, no, Vonviette 
won’t. She isn’t that kind. — Oh, girls, did you ever 
see such an utterly magnificent fireplace, and that 
queer old man, and the funny old woman in such a 
cap. Oh, can she understand ? — they look so wood¬ 
en, don’t they ? — Yes, we’ll stay to lunch. It’s taken 
us hours to get here, and there’s a dance on to-night. 
You must come back with us, in that identical gown. 
You won’t ? My, I should think you would be bored to 
death here. Why, there isn’t a thing in sight but land 
and sea and sky. Never is more than that anywhere ? 
Well, I guess you’d think there was if you came down 
to St. George. — But do tell, we’re all just dying to 
know — what you’re really here for. Perhaps you’re 
writing an Elizabeth in her G. G. book. Oh, girls, 
we’ve hit it! — Weren’t you surprised to hear Erica 
Rymal is going to marry old Wardrope ? I suppose 
Mrs. Bronsart is helping her get her trousseau in 
Paris. But wouldn’t you have thought she’d have 
stayed at home this year.? — Yes, I met Mr. Bron¬ 
sart the day before we came away — he looked hag¬ 
gard — and Christian off, too. It’s too bad. But Mr. 
Bronsart’s game. You can’t coax a sigh out of him. — 
Oh, just look, isn’t the view from this window too ut¬ 
terly unique for words .? — Yes, that old Wardrope — 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 3OI 

why, you can hear his bones creak as he walks. Oh, 
but Erica can put up with him for the millions in it. — 
Yes, but if he doesn’t die as she intends him to — 
Well, he won’t. He’s the tough and obstinate brand. 

— Oh, you’ll see Erica will develop into an austerely 
pious person. Just give her a little time. — That’s so. 
Women specialize in two subjects — men and relig¬ 
ion, together or singly as circumstances render neces¬ 
sary or prudent. — I think so, too. Just look at Von- 
viette. I remarked casually to her the last time I saw 
her that if it would help her to change her decision at 
all, I was quite ready to sacrifice myself on the matri¬ 
monial altar for her sake. And she just said in the 
sweetest way: ‘Willy, I know you would, but where 
did you get that tie ?’ — Oh, there are going to be no 
end of weddings this fall. Grant Kent is to marry 
Edith Abell of Baltimore — that’s flying pretty high, 
isn’t it ? — but Grant’s progressive. He’s the kind 
that in five years will wonder why he didn’t elevate 
the President’s daughter to the wearing of his name.” 

“Mrs. Bronsart” — it was Inderrieden speaking 

— he had waited long for his moment — “this rabble 

— you detest it, of course. But it gives me the chance 
of seeing you again. But why — ” he hesitated. 

“ Please don’t misunderstand,” said Aylmer. 
“There are no whys in my life just now. — Tm so 
happy,” she added breathlessly. “I love the loneli¬ 
ness. I want nothing else.” 

“Ah, you want nothing. You — ” 

“Except my husband,” she interposed swiftly. 
“Yes, I want — Oh, I want Christian.” 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


302 

What was it ? — the sudden quiver in her voice — 
the tender emphasis upon the name — a simplicity as 
of girlhood again upon her — something was touched 
deep in the heart of the man. 

‘‘I see” he said lightly. ‘‘Well, every woman to her 
taste, and surely no one can criticise Mrs.Bronsart’s.” 

“Oh, just look at the time. WeVe simply got to 
rush. — Yes, it’s been delightful. — Doesn’t it give 
you the creeps to look at that lovely cottage. — No, 
we can’t come up again, our time’s getting so short. — 
There! doesn’t she look sweet in that pose, so rustjc 
and all that. It leaves an utter picture in one’s mind. 
Where.? In my mind, I said. — Oh, my dear, how 
lonely you’ll feel after we’re gone.” 

The boat with its load of “clothes and hats” moved 
off, and was soon a far-away blot upon the little bay. 
As it passed out beyond the islands it awoke the 
mighty echo with its frisky whistle — a series of most 
fantastic sounds came pirouetting back around the 
shore. 

Aylmer went indoors to help Ina efface the appall¬ 
ing disarray of the cottage; she set the doors wide that 
the sweet wind from the pines might sweep away the 
costly commercial odours which profaned the place. 

“Oh, Ina, I’m so tired,” she said with a sigh, laying 
her hands on the old woman’s shoulders. “ I’m so glad 
to be alone with you again.” 

“That’s right — that’s right. I get you some tea 
now.” The wrinkled face beamed; Ina had been con¬ 
fusedly afraid that this coming of the people among 
whom she lived, might make her ‘‘ lady” dissatisfied. 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 303 

And she, Ina, was she not in these days living a life of 
such fullness of happiness as she had never known ? 

The evening shadows deepened; the long shore-line 
was still; not a wave broke upon the sand. Away in the 
west the sun sank, an avenging ball of flame upon the 
water; heavy masses of cloud smothered the crimson 
afterglow; a sullen grey spread slowly over the blue. 
Suddenly a hot breath licked the surface of the water; 
it fluttered like a thing awakening to life; a moment 
more and it was in a black frenzy. 

“I see a big storm come,” said Adolf. ‘‘Maybe you 
like that?” For each day he discovered anew that 
there was no accounting for tastes. Had he not been 
made to sit in the boat with oars unstirred for half an 
hour at a time, that Aylmer might “feel the silence ? ” 

The great masses of cloud piled themselves ever 
deeper; the whole west was in torment. Miles away 
the roar of the waves made ceaseless cannonade; the 
furious spray dashing high against the islands hid 
them at times as in a mist; the faint daylight still lin¬ 
gering against the sky shimmered copper-coloured 
before the storm which swept on preceded by what 
seemed the black breath of some mighty monster of 
space. And high upon the storm-line a vessel rode, her 
masts bare sticks against the thin sinister streak of 
light where sea met sky. 

“Oh, look, Adolf ! Why, the boat. Don’t you see it 
will be wrecked ? ” Aylmer watched it through the 
glass. “It’s tossing like a chip.” 

“Oh, that’s Jake,” said Adolf unmoved. “He’ll get 
under the island. Oh, that’s nothing.” He spread his 


304 the work of our hands 

fingers contemptuously, and lighted the pipe of con¬ 
templation. 

“Now you better go in,” he remarked a few min¬ 
utes later. “She’s here.” 

But ten minutes later “she” had passed, leaving a 
tangle of fallen trees in the forest; not a leaf stirred 
again; the stars came out serene in the purple sky; 
only the waves rushed raging upon the shore, and the 
raindrops fell like hail from the sodden branches. 

“Don’t you think you better come in now,” asked 
Ina, peering into the darkness of the piazza an hour 
and more later. 

“Oh, no, no — not yet,” said Aylmer in a smoth¬ 
ered voice. 

Christian, Christian — away, and she did not even 
know where ! And Vonviette — what had they meant ? 
What had been happening to them while she had 
been leading here her selfish life, all free of care ? 

Christian! She breathed his name out upon the 
darkness. How was she to live through another night 
here, and not know ? 

Ah, she must be calm, and think it out reasonably. 
Christian was away and apparently he had been away 
for a long time. Well, under those circumstances he 
might at least — No! how could he after all that she 
had said ? She did not want a man to crawl at her 
feet. 

Well, he had not done that certainly. 

And Vonviette — some amazing thing must have 
happened if really — but they all seemed to know — 
to be so sure. 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 305 

Loud and sweet, quite close to her, a whippoorwill 
began his plaintive call. Then faint and fainter as he 
flew back into the forest deeps grew the rising and 
falling notes. 

Yes, yes, she was a woman, with the torment of a 
woman’s problems upon her, but she was Christian’s 
wife, and she loved him — loved him. 

The flame-tipped fingers of the dawn lifted the grey 
veil of night; another day rose fair in the east and 
found her wide-eyed, wondering howjshe was to bear it. 

But she met it and many more before the peace of a 
fixed resolution entered her heart. Because, she must 
think it out — for his sake. 

She went far back to the beginnings — she felt 
again the glow of that golden moment when she had 
first known herself beloved — Ah, the sweetness of it 
now in her memory was more than she knew how to 
bear. 

And their marriage — she mused long, the shadows 
of remembrance deep in her eyes. 

How had all this later misery of separation come to 
them after such a beginning ? What should she have 
done that she had failed to do — to prevent it ? 

Day after day she asked that question and got no 
answer. And then her heart began to repudiate all 
need of reply; it cried: ‘‘Christian, Christian,” and 
refused to be appeased by argument. 

But Erica Rymal — Erica Rymal — was that a 
thing for a wife lightly to condone ^ 

Did that woman believe that because Christian was 
angry with his wife, he cared for her — really cared ? 


3o6 the work of our hands 

She held her head high — even old Adolf wondered 
at the sudden blaze in her eyes. 

Christian had been a fool. 

Well.? 

Like a child with his blocks she had built too high 
a tower — suddenly it had wavered and fallen. She 
had wanted to do such great things — to change the 
current of a life in a day — her own — her husband’s 
— poor Lucy’s. 

What immeasurable desolation she had felt when 
she came home that Sunday evening after Booth- 
royd’s last sermon and found Lucy gone. She had sat 
down in the girl’s empty room and looked helplessly 
about at the pretty trifles with which she had sought 
to make it attractive, and there was the tragic little 
message pinned to the curtain: “ I’m not going away 
because I don’t love you. I can’t help going.” 

She had sat there a long time, repeating monoto¬ 
nously that she had failed — failed. She was uncon¬ 
scious of her precarious nervous condition and of the 
effect upon her of the sermon she had just heard — it 
simply seemed necessary that she should try to realize 
calmly where she stood. She had failed, and lost the 
girl; she had hopelessly alienated her husband. She 
had driven him into doing what would have been im¬ 
possible to him but for her high-handed independence 
of him — and now — she was alone, so helplessly 
alone. 

She began to sob, such strange dry sobs, and in a 
moment to her horror she was screaming — she, 
Aylmer I 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 307 

And then Miriam had run in and gathered her into 
her strong arms, and she listened, shocked, to her 
own loud cry: “Oh, Miriam, Miriam, don^t let them 
hear me.” 

That was the last she had known very clearly, until 
she awakened that bright morning and lay so con¬ 
tent, watching the dancing of the sunshine upon the 
walls of her pretty room. 

And then the first time that she had opened her 
eyes and found Christian beside her, his face so white 
and strained! — she had turned her head away from 
him — it was cruel, but after all that had happened 
was she to clutch at reconciliation ? 

Ah, if he had only bent over and taken her in his 
arms 1 

She smiled now, even through a mist of tears. 
What made a man—one's own husband—so dense ? 

Afraid of her ^ — of course he was. But what bus¬ 
iness had he, Christian, to be afraid of her, Aylmer his 
wife ? 

He had proposed to conquer her by obstinacy — it 
was no way with a woman, and he with an armory full 
of weapons before which she never could standi 

But she ? — was not this argument one that cut 
both ways ? Had she not willed to conquer him with 
the logic of coldly reasoned fact ? A beautiful light 
came into her eyes. “Oh Christian, Christian!” she 
murmured, longing. 

Afraid of her ? Of course he must be — forever 
afraid of that in herself which she held most high, be¬ 
yond the touch that breathes. 


3o8 the work of our hands 

The sound of the church-bell stole faintly through 
the woods, ringing for the mid-week service. Long 
years before it had been taken from a wreck which had 
gone to pieces upon the reefs; high above the tumult of 
that memorable storm it had sounded, calling upon 
the people of David for help; they heard it, anguished, 
and could render none. The story had a fascination 
for Aylmer, for among the bodies washed ashore were 
those of a young and handsome man, and, tight 
clasped in his arms, a lovely girl. 

She had often lingered by their single grave; there, 
upon the hillside for thirty years they had slept well. 

God and the woman he loved! In the last great mo¬ 
ment had not every other thought sunk into insignifi¬ 
cance ? 

And so the church bell was to her a memorial of 
these two — she never heard it without thinking of 
them. 

“You sure you won’t be lonely now while Adolf and 
I go to church inquired Ina anxiously. 

“Oh, no, no!” She smiled up into the old, hard 
face. “I have such beautiful things to think of, 
Ina.” 

But after they were gone she paced restlessly up 
and down the piazza. How long she had waited — 
how resolutely she had argued. She could wait and 
argue no more. 

And there in the faint twilight, so glad of the loneli¬ 
ness, she wrote to him the little note which became 
precious the moment the words upon the paper 
looked up at her. 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 309 

“ Chrtsttariy wherever you are^ you must come to me. 
I cannot do without you any longer. I love you.^* 

Ah, she sealed the envelope at last, and then in a 
passion of eagerness ran down the lonely road to the 
post-office. Wherever he might be, this would find 
him, and he would come — oh, she knew that. Why, 
he loved her — never for a moment had she doubted 
that. 

“You come late,’’ said old Knut the postmaster. 
He was leaning over the garden gate, smoking his last 
pipe for the day. 

Aylmer slipped the letter into the box. “Yes,” she 
said breathlessly. “I ran. It’s a lonely road. But I had 
to get my letter in. You see” — she must say it — she 
must hear it for herself as fact — “you see, my hus¬ 
band will soon be here.” 

“Ah, yes, yes, I see,” replied Knut appreciatively. 
He was the philosopher of the settlement. And now he 
laughed softly. “Love — it is a big thing. And some 
people never understand that.” The smoke snorted 
from his pipe in contempt. “Lovewhy, there’s me. 
I love a girl in Norway. I come here. I see her no more 
for thirty year. Then one day I feel something. I can¬ 
not wait at all. I write. I say: ‘Here is the money, 
Anna. You come. And quick.’ 

“I seal that letter very hard. Then I remember the 
dog. I open the letter, and I say: ‘Anna, you come if 
you can love the dog. Else, you stay.’ She come. But 
she only live one year with us.” 

“Why, didn’t she like it ?” Aylmer wondered that 
she had never heard this story before. 


3lO THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

“Yes, she like it. We both like it, and the dog. But 
she die.’' 

He puffed in silence for a moment: then he added: 
“Wacker goes for a walk with me every Sunday — 
back there” —he looked over his shoulder towards 
the hill — “and we stand there, and I say to him: 
‘Wacker, you never forget Anna,’ and he beat his 
tail and we come away. 

“And these people — these — say to me: ‘Knut, 
you better get marry again.’ Me marry! and Anna 
there on the hill ? No, no!” 

The days passed, and Aylmer watched the little 
bay as one who listens to heavenly music, entranced. 

And each day her face grew sweeter, and the light 
that waited in her eyes, more lovely. 


CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 


I NA, Ina!” 

The telegram fluttered from Aylmer’s fingers to 
the floor. 

“Oh, Ina — my husband — there has been an ac¬ 
cident. I must go.” 

An hour later she stood on the shore ready to step 
into the boat which was to take her across the bay to 
the nearest train station. A mournful little group sur¬ 
rounded her. “Jert, I won’t forget,” she said with a 
long look for the boy. “And Engebret, you know I 
shall think of you.” 

Many hands pushed the boat off, and through a 
blur of tears Aylmer waved farewell to these friends 
she felt so dear. How completely she had merged her 
life and all its interests in theirs for the time. Yet in a 
moment the thread that bound her to them had 
snapped. Already she saw the familiar shore through 
distant eyes — had she indeed lived there through long 
weeks and thought herself content ? 

There, it was beating in her brain again, that brief, 
cruel message from Christie Bronsart: Meet me in Chi¬ 
cago Friday on train leaving Pike Bay Thursday night. 
Christian injured. An accident. Can reach him Sunday. 
3 ” 


312 THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 

Christian injured ? How ? Where ? 

And what had she been doing all these months, in¬ 
sisting that he should go his way, that she might fol¬ 
low hers unhampered ? 

Christian, Christian! What misery of suspense as 
the long night hours dragged slowly through to the 
dawn, and she lay tormented, answering the ques¬ 
tions which besieged her heart in infinite variety of 
bewilderment. 

Day came at last, only to bring with it sharper real¬ 
ization of her wretchedness. The long weeks at David 
seemed to be part of some previous existence in which 
she had moved as in a dream. Her life had ended, as it 
seemed now, at the moment when she had parted 
from Christian; she had awakened as from long 
sleep, but to what consciousness of pain and fear! 

“Fifty-ninth Street!’’ She sat alert, her eyes wide 
with excitement. “Twenty-third!” Her heart began 
such cruel beat — it was but a question of moments 
now, and she would know. Oh, did he want her.? Ah, 
if he only did! But what if he did not ^ 

“Twelfth Street Depot — Chicago — all change!” 

She stepped blindly from the car, and for an agon¬ 
ized instant stood helpless. 

“Well, well!” She turned sharply — it was Sincer¬ 
ity, her strong old face all stirred and tender. “Yes, 
yes, child. Mr. Bronsart brought me with him. He 
thought some one of your own ought to be with you, 
and your father’s out West. Mr. Bronsart’s at the ho¬ 
tel. We’re to go there, and then we leave for the South 
in about three hours.” 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 313 

The usual calmness was gone from Sincerity’s man¬ 
ner; she spoke tremulously and avoided looking at 
Aylmer. 

“ But Sincerity — Oh, Sin dear, is he — is he — ” 
she choked with fear. 

“ My lamb, he’s living. And maybe he is to live. We 
shall soon know.” 

The gravity of the tone alarmed her afresh. ‘‘Oh, 
Sin, Sin,” she moaned, “how did it happen 

“In the mill, my child — the cotton mill.” 

^ “The mill V* repeated Aylmer bewildered. 

“Child, he’s been there, nearly ever since you left.” 

“Christian — my Christian.?” She sat straight in 
the carriage; her white face flamed crimson. 

Then in a moment she was still — she did not speak 
again until they reached the hotel and Christie Bron- 
sart was at the carriage door. His thin, strained face— 
the little stoop which had come to his shoulders since 
she saw him last — the general, indefinable ageing of 
his sprightly figure forced instant acknowledgment 
upon her of the changes in him. 

She followed him in silence to the parlour where he 
had evidently been writing. 

But hardly was the door closed when he turned upon 
her — a Christie Bronsart she had never seen before. 

“Oh, damn you!” he said; “damn you!” 

His hands were clenched; he was an old, stricken 
man. 

“Damn the day when you came into my boy’s life 
— damn the day when you married him! You and 
your Forsythe ideas!” He struck the table beside him. 


314 the work of our hands 

“What have they to do with my boy ? It’s because of 
you that he’s lying down there to-night mangled by 
that brute machinery — what business had my boy — 
my son — doing work like that ? And it’s all because 
of you and your cursed ideas.” 

Aylmer sank into a chair and covered her face 
with her hands. But her misery had reached that 
height where she was hardly conscious of added 
suffering. 

After a long time she looked up. Bronsart sat, star¬ 
ing straight out of the window before him. His eyes 
saw only the face of his boy. 

“Mangled ?” — she repeated with lips that shrank 
— “mangled V* 

Bronsart nodded; there was long silence again. 

He took out his watch — Oh, the slow, slow min¬ 
utes here, and the swift ones there, where Death hov¬ 
ered with carrion claw outstretched! His strong heart 
fainted within him — Oh, the boy, the boy! 

The storm which had shaken him at sight of Ayl¬ 
mer passed. What a girl she looked, and how broken 
by this shock! 

After a long time she spoke; he hardly caught her 
words. “Yes, yes. I know — my ideas — they must 
seem to you — Oh, they seem to me — but why — 
why ? — for they were right — I know it — but 
they’ve worked out all wrong. And now Christian — 
Christian — ” her tears choked her. 

He leaned over to her. “Child, child!” he said ten¬ 
derly. “We’re in this together, and we’ll bear it 
together.” 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 315 

She buried her face in the pillow on the couch and 
sobbed. And he thought it well that she should. 

“Aylmer,’’ he said gently, when at last she was 
quiet, “ I have a letter for you. Would you like to have 
it now.? ” 

She sat up. “A letter — from — from — 

“Yes, from Christian. When he went South he left 
it with me. You were to have it — in case — in case 
anything happened.” 

She took it — held it in helpless fingers. 

“ And in his last letter to me—See! you might like to 
read this—” he spread a page before her—what sheets 
there were, and how closely written. And not for her 
— not for her — that was the thought that stabbed. 

“Look, it’s here.” 

Above his finger the sentence stood out sharp. 

“ You will remember, if anything should go wrong, and here in 
this hellhole where men’s lives are worth nothing, where only the 
machine is sacred, one never knows what may be the next moment— 
you will remember that Aylmer must have my letter at once. And 
some day she may like to read those that I have written you out of 
the depths of this experience. ” 

Ah, Christian, Christian! She hid her face again. 

“I guess I’ll go off for a smoke,” said Bronsart. 
She must be alone with her letter, he thought. 

At last she opened it, and through blinding storms 
of tears, read the precious words: 

“ My Wife: — It’s very late, and the house is so still — and so 
empty. I have a great deal yet to do, for to-morrow I’m going away 
for a long time. 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 


316 

As I analyse my motives, I know I am not going because I want 
to go — I am not moved to this step by lofty love of my neighbour 
as you would be. But if men have made such experiments in the in¬ 
terests of social science, how much easier it ought to be for me to do 
so for the sake of the wife who at this moment is so dear to me that I 
do not know how to bear another day of my life without her. Oh 
Aylmer, Aylmer, it has been so hard. 

But what will happen, beloved, if I come back and tell you that I 
have made the trial and that my ideas remain unchanged by it 
Will you be able to believe then, that I too, have a conscience in 
spite of appearances, and that my honour is as dear to me as yours 
is to you ? 

Yet perhaps, even then, you will see that these weary months of 
unhappiness and alienation have taught me something — that I, 
because I am husband, may not assume to be conscience for you. I 
should like to do that always, I know, but my darling, I will not, and 
you must not let me. 

What a coward I am — how I dread the coming of to-morrow, and 
the new life that is before me. I shall be such a clumsy workman, 
and how shall I get work ? That fear unnerves me already. I have 
never had to go out and earn a dollar unaided in my life. I am afraid. 

Oh Aylmer, Aylmer, what are you doing away there in the still¬ 
ness ? Have you thought of me once to-day ? 

My darling, I draw you near to me, and I whisper: Because I love 
you, I do this thing that I hate.” 

Forty-eight hours later, after a journey rendered 
cruel by every species of delay and missed connec¬ 
tion, Aylmer waited, in the common parlour of a de¬ 
jected-looking frame hotel, for word from the sick¬ 
room. She was faint with fear. 

A woman in nurse’s garb hurried into the room; 
she had a kindly, peaceful face. 

“Ah, you’re here at last. I have been counting the 
minutes, for this afternoon we thought it best to tell 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 317 

him that you were coming — we had been afraid to 
speak of it before. But after all it was the wise thing, 
for you see, he fell asleep.’’ She turned to Aylmer. “I 
told him that if he slept as I wanted him to, he would 
awake and find you beside him. I think you had bet¬ 
ter come up at once.” 

Aylmer held out her hand to Christie Bronsart. 

‘‘No, no, child,” he said gently. “You go first. I’ll 
come presently.” 

She followed the nurse, stumbling up a dark 
stairway, then down a long, narrow, half-lighted 
passage. 

“It’s quieter here, you see,” the woman said softly. 
She opened the creaking door carefully, and alone, 
Aylmer went in. 

She stood for some moments — trembling, blind. 
Then slowly, sight came. That — Christian! 

With a smothered moan she leaned over and took 
the thin, work-scarred hand in hers, and laid it, so 
dear to her, against her cheek. 

And so she waited, while he slept, and the sun sank 
low in the west. 

And then, just as day died upon the far-off hills, he 
opened his eyes and found her. 

“My darling,” he whispered painfully, “my dar¬ 
ling, it has been such a long, long time to 
wait.” 

Beloved, have you seen the vision? 

In the deep silence of the night, the great question 
with which Boothroyd had closed his sermon came 


3i8 the work of our hands 

back with power that mastered every vagrant 
thought. 

Had she seen it ? — had Christian ? And were they, 
together, ready to be obedient unto it ? 

Her heart made high answer. Ay, life for them 
was to be along no rose-leaf path — they were 
not to take it less than nobly — together, they 
were to suffer — to know the agony of doubt, of 
self-distrust — to feel at times the hopeless misery 
which sees ahead no righting of the world’s great 
wrongs. 

But she heard again the low, intensely-uttered 
words: “To the wheel, beloved, to the wheel.” 

Her white face glowed. Ah, how magnificently 
the man, her husband, had set his shoulder to 
it. She bent down and kissed with brooding lips 
the hand that lay helpless on the coverlet — 
the hand, it seemed to her, maimed and scarred 
as the Christ’s with the bitter wounds of hu¬ 
manity. 

“Soul of man, wouldst thou see Paradise with me 
when the night of life is past 

“Ay, Lord, ay. But how — but how 

This was the question to which their lives were to 
make answer, through what blindness of mistake, 
what passion of prejudice, what tragedy of weakness, 
of cowardice, of self-deceiving. 

But also, through what persistence of righteous¬ 
ness, what trembling but triumphant faith in the ma¬ 
jesty of that Ideal which seeks victory in sacrifice, 


THE WORK OF OUR HANDS 319 

peace in renunciation, and death, if need be, on 
Calvary. 

‘‘ The procession passes: 

Beloved, have you seen the Viston ? ** 


THE END 


THE MCCLURE PRESS, NEW YORK 





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